All That Once Was Lost
by slightlysmall
Summary: It's 3003 and Rowena Potter is nearly finished with her sixth year at Hogwarts. A mysterious object found in the Forbidden Forest opens her up to a world of adventure - one with implications about her past, the history of the world she thought she knew, and a future she has to make for herself. (Second place in the Original Character Competition!)
1. Revision

Rowena Potter sighed as she sat on the floor in the Gryffindor Common Room. Papers from various classes were spread out around her haphazardly, and she was slowly making a dent in organizing them by subject. The khakis she wore for her uniform, normally pristinely pressed, were wrinkled and the seams were making indents in her legs. Her crimson-colored shirt, embroidered with a small gold lion on the left pocket, was unbuttoned one too many times to meet school regulations, but it was after curfew anyway, and almost everyone was already asleep. The only people who remained in the Common Room were sixth years, who had mock N.E.W.T.s the next day, and no one but Rhys Finnegan seemed to pay her any attention.

"For being generally considered the smartest in our class, you are certainly disorganized," he was saying, as he set about reviewing his own well-organized notes.

"For generally being the most organized in our class, you sure need a lot of help revising," she shot back. "Remind me your grade on your last Transfiguration exam?" Rowena looked up to her best friend, seated in one of the overstuffed chairs beside her, a twinkle in her eye.

"I would've done just fine except for the practical portion. You know my wand and I don't really get along all too well," he said.

"Sure, blame it on the wand," she said, returning to her piles of notes. "You think you'd be able to tame it _some_ by now. It's been yours for nearly six years."

"Yeah, whatever. Hey, once you've found your History of Magic notes, will you help me revise? Oh, never mind; I'm sure it will be long after our exams by the time you've tracked them all down."

"It's a good thing we have your notes to work from then, isn't it?" She picked up her wand and sent her nearly organized piles to a nearby table then got up to join them. "It's past eleven now; maybe we should actually review something before our exams. Join me?"

Rhys collected his pile of notes and joined her at the table. "Okay, I'm here. Now will you please make your review of 2,000 years of recorded wizarding history quick and coherent? I have to remember at least _some_ of it in the morning."

Rowena sighed at his request, but soon lost herself in the story, hardly relying on notes. History fascinated her, despite being taught by a ghost who had been around for most of the time periods he taught about, one who was far more interested in hearing himself speak than having his students learn. But even though Professor Binns left much to be desired as far as adequate professors went, the material itself was enough to engross her. Especially when she got through the International Statute of Secrecy, skimmed over the next few centuries, and started in the twentieth century.

"Okay, what year did Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald?"

"1945." In response to Rowena's quizzical look at his certainty, he continued, "Vintage Chocolate Frog card collection. I have everyone but Morgana."

"You would get your history from a bunch of old trading cards. By the way, I have about six of Morgana, since my mum was named for her. If you want one, I'll get it to you later. But in the meantime, what year did the First Wizarding War end, and why?"

"The why is easy: Voldemort tried to kill Harry Potter and the killing curse rebounded and split his soul, destroying his original body. As to the year, I can't remember if it was 1985 or 1983."

"Neither; it was 1981, but a good answer for the why."

"Ugh; why do they make us memorize specific years from so long ago? Isn't it good enough that I remembered that it was the end of the twentieth century? I even got the decade right!"

"Professor Binns doesn't think so, and neither do the exams. A trick for remembering the year, though: you remember the year of the Battle of Hogwarts, right?"

"1998. That's easy, since we had the celebration of the thousandth anniversary back in our first year. What's that have to do with anything?"

"Since we know that Harry was nearly eighteen at the Battle of Hogwarts, and his parents were killed when he was one, just subtract seventeen from the year of the Battle."

"Maths? That's almost as bad as memorizing."

"Well, those are your two options. Sorry, mate. Anyway, let's move on to more recent history. Tell me everything you know about the War of the Wand."

"A history lesson I enjoy?! Sure thing. In 2654, Nelson Zabini, having just graduated from Hogwarts, broke into Dumbledore's tomb and stole his wand, widely believed to be the Elder Wand, Deathstick, or whatever it was called back then. However, he apparently didn't grow up reading _Beedle the Bard_, because he made the same mistake as the first brother, not keeping the wand a secret and claiming it could beat anyone. Since the wand was stolen, it wasn't particularly loyal to him and Helga Krum easily took it. The wand moved from hand to hand faster than ever before, until the Ministry got involved, trying unsuccessfully to confiscate the wand and have it banned. It passed from person to person nearly every six months for about 75 years, but slowed down after that, once people became less certain of the wand's origins. General opinion was that the people claiming to have the Elder Wand were delusional, so it was only another 15 times in 225 years that the wand changed families. A divide was cast between families who believed in the power of the Wand and those who didn't, and like the Pureblood myths of old times, it was belief or not in the wand that determined marital eligibility. But soon, even that myth lost its power. At last, it fell into the hands of Leila Weasley after her father passed away shortly after winning it. That was back in 2895, and no one has heard of it since."

"I forgot how much you liked that part. I should just let you write my essay for the mock N.E.W.T. tomorrow."

"Okay, if you'll do the translation from Modern English for me."

"And you do the practical for Care of Magical Creatures."

"Maybe we should just do our own work and call it good?"

"Fine. But remind me why I'm taking N.E.W.T.-level Care of Magical Creatures again?"

"Because you wanted someone to sit by in Ancient Runes."

"Right. I should've thought that through more; it's just another class where I have to explain the homework to you." She smiled and began to pick up her notes, shoving them haphazardly into her satchel and completely undoing all progress she'd made toward organization. "I'll see you tomorrow for exams, Rhys. Sleep well."

"You too, Ro," he said, still gathering his notes into an organized pile before putting them away.

The next day was full of mock exams for the sixth years. Rowena felt prepared enough for most of them, but was slightly embarrassed at her inability to tame a Hippogriff. Professor Finney had a hard time containing his laughter when the annoyed Hippogriff began to chase her, and waited far too long, in Rowena's opinion, to rein in the beast. Over dinner that evening, she could barely think, let alone keep up with Rhys's commentary on each exam he took. "-after Herbology, I wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing- after all I was exhausted by this point- and I knocked over Professor Smith's collection of magical herbs, and well you know how much she prides herself on having the herbs close at hand- so basically I have detention tonight."

"What?" Rowena said, quickly snapping out of her near-catatonic state. "You managed to earn a detention on a day when we didn't even have formal classes? Well, if anyone would..."

"Yeah, I know, it would be me," he sighed. "Anyway, I have to go out to the Forbidden Forest to gather herbs right after dinner tonight, so we'll have to postpone our chess game."

"That's fine. It'll save you some embarrassment at least," she said. While she was no master at chess, Rhys's own lack of skill meant she won nearly every game.

"If you say so. I'd better get going though; hopefully if I get started soon I'll be back in time for a game or two."

Rowena finished eating in silence; six years and she still had a hard time making friends. Rhys was the exception, and only because she made the mistake of sharing a compartment with him on the outdated Hogwarts Express their first year. He talked nearly unceasingly for the long journey and seemed to find her relative silence agreeable. When he searched her out the next morning during their first lesson, she hesitatingly accepted his friendship. It still took years, though, before she could trust him as blindingly as he trusted her, and it was halfway through third year before she confessed to him anything personal.

They had stayed up late, at least late for being fourteen, and he had asked her far more gently than usual why she never talked about her mother. She swallowed, breathed some and then said plainly, "She's dead."

"Oh," was all he said in reply, but she somehow found release in talking about it and decided to elaborate.

"Papa tells me she died in childbirth. Sometimes, though, I dream of a woman that I think might be her, even though there is no way I would know what she's like. Hey, it's okay, Rhys," she said as he looked at her, apparently still in shock. "Papa and I get along great, and I spent a lot of time with my cousins growing up, so it felt like a normal family- Papa and me, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Helen, and their twins Soren and Augustine. But you know them, at any rate."

Rhys nodded. Her twin cousins were a year ahead of them in school, both in Slytherin, and Soren had a reputation for getting in trouble. Augustine was nicer, at least when he was alone, but he had the tendency to follow his twin into whatever scheme they planned. They weren't bad as far as childhood playmates went, but they were just as likely to leave her out as play with her back then. She never minded the exclusion, or the way they generally ignored her now. She would rather curl up by the fireplace with a history book than join them in a scheme. In fact, in the present as she got up to return to Gryffindor Tower alone, she knew precisely the book she would read and precisely which isolated easy chair she would occupy until Rhys returned.

Upstairs, in the chair she wanted, book in hand, she lost herself in the pages of a mythology book dedicated to Harry Potter. Rowena hardly noticed as the fire had died down nearly to embers. It was nearly midnight by the time Rhys returned, his hands dirty from his work. "Hey, Rhys. How did it go?"

"Smith made me wait for hours to pick the ones that only show themselves in moonlight. But it wasn't bad overall. If I let myself, I might have even enjoyed it." He sat down on the edge of her easy chair, looking over her shoulder. "Reading more about Harry Potter, huh?"

"You would too if you shared a name with him. It's cool to think that we might actually be related."

"There are some thirty generations between you; I don't know if you can really call that relation."

"I don't care what you call it. At the very least you have to admit I look like him." She lifted her face, opening her eyes far beyond necessity and flipping her hair around.

"Okay, so you have black hair and green eyes-"

"When there isn't another wizard alive without at least a trace of red in their hair," she added smartly.

"It was still so long ago. There have to be hundreds of people related to him in one way or another."

He got up from the side of her chair, and as he did so, she noticed that the leather cord that was normally strung around his neck was missing. He looked strange without it; ever since she met him, his lucky ankh was always worn as a necklace. "Um, Rhys?"

"Yeah, Ro?"

"What happened to your ankh?"

His hand went to his chest. "Oh no. I thought I heard something drop in the forest at some point tonight, but I didn't think anything of it. You have to help me go get it!"

"Why can't you just Summon it?"

"Because my great-grandfather got it from an ancient Egyptian tomb and it was his most valuable possession. It's supposed to be lucky, after all. So he set up various measures of protection on it. One of them is that you can't just say 'Accio ankh' if you want it back. It has to be found manually."

"Okay, fine. You have to search for it. But why do I have to help you?"

"Because you have the best invisibility cloak of anyone we know. And better eyesight. Plus, we went all over the forest looking for herbs tonight. It could be anywhere and we can cover more ground with two of us."

"You want to split up? I would have to be in the forest alone? What if something tries to get me?"

"Will you please stop worrying about some sort of deadly animal waiting to attack us? I'm in there all the time and nothing's happened to me."

"Fine. I'll go with you. Tomorrow."

"Please can we go now? You know how much that means to me. I'm not sure I could sleep without it."

Rowena wasn't sure if he was being serious or just trying to make her feel badly about it. But whatever the reason, it was working. "Fine. Five more minutes; I'll change and go grab the cloak." She flew up the stairs to her dormitory, seven levels above the Common Room, and went quietly to the window to open it. The night air was warm for April, and she left behind a coat as she changed out of her uniform into something more comfortable and grabbed her cloak from the bottom of her trunk. The other girls in her room were heavy sleepers, and didn't so much as twitch at her presence, which made her grateful. She wasn't one for sneaking out at night, and didn't want to answer any questions from her inquisitive roommates.

Rhys wasn't in the Common Room, but within a minute he was clambering down the stairs from the male dorms, nearly shouting from across the room. "Ready, Ro?"

She rolled her eyes at him and waited until he was closer to answer. "Will you please be quiet? I really don't like having to do this in the first place. I can't imagine having to go to detention just because of your ankh and your insistence."

"It would be worth it, I think, but fine. I'll be quiet. You have the cloak?"

"No, I left it upstairs and thought we'd just go without it. Honestly, Rhys... of course I have the cloak." She pulled it out of her back pocket and wrapped it around the two of them. They had both grown since the last time they needed it, and had a hard time getting it to cover them both completely. They ended up with shoulders overlapping, Rhys in front of Rowena, since she was slightly taller, and the proximity was enough to throw her concentration. Silently, they climbed out of the portrait hole and began their trek outside with bated breath.

Once they were on school grounds, Rowena began to feel more comfortable. Clouds covered most of the stars, and she knew it was a new moon, so they walked to the Forest in a blackness that was almost palpable. Refusing to light their wands for fear of being seen, Rowena relied on Rhys to guide her, since he spent more time on the grounds than in the castle to begin with. Fumbling in front of her, she clasped his left hand in her own, and he squeezed it lightly as some sort of reassurance.

They made it to the edge of the forest with no incident, and under the cover of trees, they pulled off the invisibility cloak. "See? No issues," Rhys said confidently.

"Yet," Rowena replied. "We still have to find your ankh and get back inside."

"Should be easy enough. I'll take the path to the left here, and you go to the right. We'll use standard forest protocol from when I'm in here with Professor Finney. If you find the ankh, send up green sparks. If you find trouble, send up red sparks. Keep your eyes in the air often, since I'll do the same thing."

She nodded, still completely unsure of herself. She didn't care how often Rhys was in here helping his professors; it wasn't called forbidden for nothing, and she wasn't quite ready to find out what might lurk in the shadows of its gigantic trees. Nevertheless, she set off, looking for patches of herbs that might indicate a place Rhys had stopped to work. She wandered for what felt like ages, noting places here and there where there was freshly turned dirt and kneeling down to feel for his necklace. In the safety of the blackness, she felt secure enough to light her wand, which she kept pointed in front of her scanning for strange creatures. On more than one occasion, she jumped as a small spider crossed her path, then laughed at herself. Spiders were one creature she had never been particularly terrified of. It was creatures with magical history that worried her.

Deep in the forest she found a large patch of overturned dirt, so she sat down to began scanning the area. She didn't see any telltale signs of leather, but a small black rock caught her attention and she picked it up. There were light hatch marks on one side of it, nearly filled in with dirt. The rock was diamond shaped, and it seemed that at one point it had been highly polished. It didn't appear to be the work of nature at all, and she was captivated by it. She kept it in her hand, looking over its various facets, and completely forgot to look up.

"Rowena!"

"What?" she said, dropping the stone into her pocket and looking around her. "Rhys? How did you get here?"

"I was worried about you! I sent up green sparks more than thirty minutes ago! When you didn't send up sparks back, or find me, I left the path and came to find you." His anger apparently abated for the moment, he pulled her into a hug. "I was worried, you know, since you don't like this place much. I didn't know what happened!"

"I'm sorry, Rhys," she said. "I guess I just lost track of time." She didn't feel like sharing her new discovery with him. At least not until she could find out more about it. It made her heart beat faster, keeping the secret from him, but she couldn't imagine telling him that she forgot about his ankh simply because she was staring at a rock. "I guess we should head back now?" she asked.

"Definitely so. We'll put the cloak on when we get to the edge of the forest."

"Okay. So where did you find your ankh?"

"Just about a quarter mile in from the entrance. It was one of the last places we dug, looking for herbs that were best to pick at night."

"Ah, okay. Well I'm glad you found it."

They wandered through the castle as silently as they could and, still invisible, whispered the password to a very confused Fat Lady. They said goodnight at the bottom of the staircases. "Thanks again," Rhys said through a yawn. "I can't imagine having to search the whole forest alone."

"No problem, Rhys. That's what friends are for."

Grateful that the next morning was Saturday, Rowena slept in and made no attempts to get out of bed until her dorm mates had all gone downstairs for breakfast. Then she sleepily changed her clothes and opened her trunk, where she had hidden the stone the night before. She took it and crawled back up onto her four-poster bed, closed the curtains, and turned the stone over in her hand. "I wonder what it is about you," she said to it, then tossed it up and down a few times like a Quaffle.

Suddenly there was a noise at the door and she hastily hid the stone beneath her covers and drew back the curtains. Expecting to see a fellow student back from breakfast, her jaw dropped open at the woman in front of her. Wearing a traditional dress, she had reddish-brown hair and freckles. She looked to be about thirty-five. What surprised Rowena most was the way the woman didn't feel _there_ properly. It was as if she were out of focus, or in a bit of a fog, though she walked along the floor and came to sit on Jacie Weasley's bed, right next to her own. There was an air of familiarity about her, and then the realization dawned on her in a way that she felt she'd known it all along. Uncrossing her legs and turning to better face her companion, she simply said, "Mum?"

**A/N: I'm not JK Rowling, and the world she created belongs to her. All of the characters are my own. By this point, I doubt the English language would be recognizable, but I don't make any attempts at a futuristic world. I do believe that the dress code would remain perpetually 1,000 years behind the Muggle world, so their uniform consists of a modern-day Muggle-y outfit which would look as strange to their contemporary Muggles as robes would to us.**

**From the last page pre-epilogue of Deathly Hallows, Harry says, "_I'm putting the Elder Wand back where it came from. It can stay there." _The Harry Potter wikia includes in its Elder Wand article that "where it came from" refers to Dumbledore's grave, which is what I believed prior to reading the article, and the assumption the War of the Wand relies on. Unlike in the movies, there is no reference to the wand being destroyed in any way.**

**Written for the OC Competition with the theme Memories.**


	2. Reminiscence

The woman on Jacie Weasley's bed smiled at Rowena, a kind, slightly condescending smile especially reserved for mothers. "Rowena! Look at you, so grown up. You look so much like your father."

"It _is_ you, then?" Rowena asked, still not quite sure if she should believe the apparition in front of her.

"Of course it is! How do you think I knew who you were?"

"It's just- well- how did you get there?"

Her mother came and sat beside her, and though she was firmly on the bed, unlike when ghosts would attempt to sit, the bed made no indent beneath her. "What were you doing before I arrived, dear?"

"Well, um..." She wanted to keep the stone a secret, but didn't think there was a way. After all, it was tossing it up and down that seemed to bring her into the room. "I was tossing a rock up and down."

"A rock? Let me see it." Hesitating, Rowena drew the small stone out from under her covers and held it out in her hand. "A little closer, please, dear." She moved it nearer, but couldn't penetrate the veil-like fog surrounding her. Rowena was careful to keep the strange hatch marks out of sight.

"See? It's just a stupid rock. I don't see how that can be why you're here."

"Turn it over."

Inwardly sighing, but trying to act nonchalant, she flipped the stone in her hands. "Ah, I thought so. Can you clean it off some around the hatch marks?"

Rowena obligingly rubbed the rock on her sleeve until the form of a triangular eye, almost primitive in style, began to appear more fully. "What is it?" she asked her mother, curiosity taking over her hesitance.

"It's the Resurrection Stone."

"You mean like one of the Deathly Hallows? I thought that was just legend. I mean, we haven't heard anything about the Hallows for 1,000 years!"

"Yes you have," her mother responded patiently. "Or have you not studied the War of the Wand yet?"

Rowena sat pondering all the information they had just reviewed for mock N.E.W.T.s. It was several minutes before she looked up and simply said, "Oh. I guess that makes sense."

"Don't you have any curiosity? More questions?" Her mother was getting impatient, it seemed. "What are the three Deathly Hallows?"

"The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak," Rowena spouted off. "Papa read to me from _Beedle the Bard_ nearly every night."

Morgana smiled at her daughter. "I'm glad to hear that. Tell me about your father, growing up with him. It has been a long time. Did you end up keeping Tiffany?"

"Papa was good to me. We got along really well and - wait, how do you know about our half-Kneazle? We didn't get her until I was three." Their conversation so far started running through Rowena's head, and nothing made sense to her. "And how did you even know my name? I thought you died in childbirth! What is going on, anyway?"

Her mother sighed, visible even through the thin veil that seemed to separate them. "You're a bright child. I thought it would be easier without having to get into all of this so soon, but I guess I have no choice now. Aquila and I agreed that it would be best this way, best to tell you that I died in childbirth."

"You and Papa agreed to _lie_ to me? You're going to have to explain that one. You _are _dead, right? I mean, if this is the Resurrection Stone, and you came when I turned it three times, then you must be dead. But you saw me? You helped raise me?"

Morgana hesitated, but soon started talking. "When I was your age, your father and I had just started dating, and I was really interested in his last name - how he was a Potter. I found out he was the only child of an only child of an only child for as far back as he could remember. It didn't take much to figure out that he was probably the last living descendant of Harry Potter. Naturally, I was interested in the fact. I knew he had the Invisibility Cloak-"

Rowena smiled. She knew some of the stories from when her father was in school. He wasn't particularly good at hiding the fact that he owned it and always had other students begging to borrow it. He apparently wasn't above earning a Galleon or two that way - a money-making scheme Rowena never adopted.

"-and I knew it was supposed to have been passed down from Harry Potter himself. After we got married, I asked him about the rest of the Hallows, if he ever wanted to look for them. After all, the Elder Wand's loyalty is passed through the blood line. He was the only person alive that could possibly tame it." Even in death, her face seemed to glow at the thought. "Well, he didn't want to. You were born, and I knew that we were likely to have the same curse as your father's family had had for generations; I knew you would be our only child. But as a girl, the Potter name would die with you. Once you were born, I was all the more keen on Aquila uniting the Hallows, but he wasn't interested; he insisted on focusing all his attention on raising you.

"So, when you were four years old, I told him I was going off to look for the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand, and that I would come back if I found either of them. Aquila wasn't thrilled, but he let me go. It was another three years before I died. Aquila and I stayed in touch during that time, so you were seven the last time I saw a picture of you. But after all my searching and the things I faced to get the Hallows, I drowned in a flooded river in France one winter."

Rowena just stared, open-mouthed, at her mother. Certainly, she had entertained fantasies about what her mother would be like, but she never pictured her that way. She was completely at a loss for words and only managed to get out an, "Oh." After the awkward silence had passed, her mother left the subject of the Hallows and talked with Rowena about what her life had been like, who her friends were, whether she got along with her cousins, how she liked Hogwarts, nice, normal things that daughters tend to talk about with their mothers. Away from that subject, Rowena found her mother to be interesting, engaging, and personable - at least as much as she could be from beyond the veil - and the ache in her heart for her mother was stronger in that moment talking to her than it had been in the seventeen years she'd already lived.

"I wish you hadn't left. I wish I could've had the chance for you to be actually here, and not just out of grasp," Rowena found herself saying.

"I'm sorry, Rowena. I wish that, too. I wasn't there for you like I should've been. If I had a chance to redo it, I would. But there's only one way I can think of for that to happen, and I could never ask you to-" She cut off.

"Ask me to what?"

"Well, I mean, if I could ask anyone else, but you're the only one, and you're so close anyway..."

"Mum? What are you talking about?"

"The uniter of the Hallows is considered the Master of Death, and the Master of Death has the power to resurrect the dead."

"That can't be true! I mean, I always read that there is nothing that can bring the dead back to life. It's in _Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest_ in Beedle the Bard - that one was always my favorite and I have it memorized. In the story, Dumbledore even says so."

"Dumbledore didn't know everything, dear. And no one has yet united the Hallows at the same time. Even Harry Potter, though _master_ of the Hallows, never had all of them on his person at once. The magic involved in the Deathly Hallows is ancient magic; it relies on a deeper sort of thing than reciting spells and doing wand work. I've done my research. It's the only way. How convenient for you that you already have two of the three! It is just the search for the Elder Wand that you would need to take, and you would be looking for a wand that already considers you its master."

Rowena looked down and began to think. She still wasn't sure if it was possible to bring the dead to life again, but what could it hurt? It would be a wonderful thing to go down in history as the first to possess all three Hallows at the same time, even if it didn't bring her mother back to her. "Okay. I'll look for it. Where should I start? What sort of information did you find out when you looked?"

"That's the problem; I didn't find much out at all. I couldn't trace it past Leila Weasley. She became a recluse: no one knows if she married at all, let alone who she might have married or if she had children to pass it down to. All I could find out was that her father died while she was a seventh year at Hogwarts. I'm sorry, Rowena. I wish I knew more." Her expression fell. "I'm sorry; remaining here is a lot of work. I can feel myself fading. Wait a few days, and you can turn the stone and I'll return to you. Good luck, Rowena. I love you."

Still behind the strange misty veil that separated them, Morgana Davis Potter began to fade away, blending in with the four-poster bed, until finally, she wasn't there anymore.

Rowena needed time to think, and so throughout the weekend she kept the information to herself, not even telling Rhys what she experienced that Saturday before going down to breakfast. In order to make sure she wasn't tempting herself into telling too soon, she kept quieter than usual over the weekend, sticking to her studies, reading books, all but ignoring Rhys. By Monday morning, during Care of Magical Creatures, it seemed Rhys couldn't take it anymore. As they worked as partners to study Billywigs that had been hit with _Impedimenta_, Rhys said, "What's been going on with you, Ro? Are you angry with me for making you help me find my ankh on Friday night? You've barely spoken to me all weekend!"

"I'm sorry, Rhys," Rowena replied, whispering. Genevieve Scamander, a Ravenclaw in their year, and Serah Macmillan, a Hufflepuff, were working across from them, and Rowena was determined that no one but Rhys should know what happened. Who would believe her, anyway? "I'm not upset with you. It's just that something strange happened to me Saturday morning and I wasn't ready to talk about it yet..." Rowena began explaining everything that happened to her, still in a hushed whisper, her half-completed diagram of the Billywig forgotten beside her. Every now and then, she had to pause her story and shush her friend, who kept exclaiming in a voice far louder than was prudent as she narrated some of the more exciting pieces of her story.

When she got to the end, she noticed that Genevieve's diagram lay forgotten on the ground beside her as well. She scooted closer to the pair, her dark red hair falling over her shoulder as she moved. "Rowena, you're not really going to go looking for the Elder Wand, are you?"

"I- well, I mean-"

"Because that would be too cool. Could you imagine finding it? It would be awesome!"

"You think it's a good idea, Gen?"

"It's brilliant, if you can do it."

"I see your Billywig diagrams are coming along nicely, Rowena, Genevieve." Rowena jumped and turned around to see Professor Finney crouching behind them. He was young - not much older than thirty - and even shorter than Rhys. When he wasn't around animals, he could be stern and impersonal. But the creatures he worked with brought out the best in him, and Rowena, despite her dislike for magical creatures, considered him one of her favorite professors.

"Sorry, Professor Finney," she said. "I got a bit distracted."

"I noticed." He reached out to bring the Billywig closer to himself, focusing on it instead of the people around him. "I heard what you were talking about, and you need to be careful. You're dealing in dangerous things if you go looking for that wand. It's caused more deaths than any other object in known history. And frankly, the Master of Death theory is bollocks. There's nothing to it."

He got up and brushed off the work jeans he wore every day and began to move away from them, but Rowena shouted after him. "You don't know. You weren't there! You didn't see her! Professor Finney, if you had never known your mother, and you had a chance to get her back, however slim that chance might be, wouldn't you take it? I don't see any other choice. Now that I've met her... how can I return to just acknowledging that she died when I was young?"

"You're not a reckless person, Rowena; please don't become one now," he said, turning away. After he took a few steps, he turned back and added, "I still expect detailed diagrams of the Billywigs by the end of class. You have thirty minutes left."

As Rowena had just barely got the general structure of the animal in place, and the others weren't much further ahead, they worked in silence for the next half-hour, taking care to properly label the stinger and each element of its exoskeleton.

For the first time, when class was over and they began the walk to the castle, Rowena and Rhys were not alone. Genevieve Scamander had joined them, asking Rowena more questions about the Resurrection Stone, her mother, and the Deathly Hallows themselves. "You know, if you needed any help, I could see what I could do," she said.

"I don't know. I'm still not even sure where to look or anything."

"The library's usually a good place to start. We've got two thousand years' worth of books to go through. I'm busy for the next few nights, but I could meet you after dinner on Wednesday. We could cover more ground with three of us, you know."

"I guess you're right. I'll meet you then?"

"Sure thing," Genevieve said, smiling, as they separated to go up to the towers of their Common Rooms.

Though Charms was her next class, and it was her favorite of the practical N.E.W.T.s, she couldn't concentrate on preparing for the lesson. Rowena was caught up in Professor Finney's warning and Genevieve's kind offer to help. Rhys, of course, was enthusiastic and couldn't wait to help her. He had always been interested in the Elder Wand and its history; he considered the chance to look for it as the adventure of a lifetime. She was half-tempted to back out and let Rhys handle it on his own, except that it was her mother, and the other Hallows were already rightfully hers. They were best friends, certainly, but would Rhys hand over the Elder Wand if he found it? Could Rowena give him the Stone and the Cloak and let _him_ become the Master of Death in her place? She found it hard to believe that either of them could be that selfless and decided that it should be her quest; perhaps her quest alone. If she was lucky, she could get a lead before Wednesday and back out before having to meet with Genevieve. She was nice enough, certainly, but Rowena didn't want more people involved than there needed to be.

She spent the rest of the day distracted, wanting to concentrate on her schoolwork as she usually did, but completely caught up in replaying the conversation with her mother, searching her memory for clues as to where the Elder Wand would be. She remembered only that Leila Weasley, the last known owner of the wand, was still a student when she received it. Could it be... was it possible? Maybe, just maybe Leila had lost or hidden the wand. Maybe it, like the Resurrection Stone, had been hiding in the cover of the Forest for hundreds of years, just waiting to be found.

Impatient, ready for her quest to end, she resolved to go back to the Forest that night, after everyone was asleep. She had her Cloak, and she'd been there before without anything happening. What was one more evening?

As they worked on homework after dinner, Rowena let Rhys think that he had somehow managed to finish studying before her and she was going to stay up to finish. Once the Common Room was deserted, she pulled the Invisibility Cloak out from her satchel and wrapped it around herself. The midnight air was warm around her and the ground was hard; it had been several weeks since it last rained. Comforted by the calm weather, confident from her last visit into the Forbidden Forest, she reached a path and walked in.


	3. Relentless

Despite the warm night air, Rowena found herself shivering as she took off the Cloak under the covering of the ancient trees. The sliver of the moon didn't do much for providing light, so a few hundred yards in, she took out her wand. "Lumos." Without the comfort of knowing that Rhys was nearby, Rowena's fear of the Forbidden Forest magnified. Every rustle of leaves in the light wind made her heart skip a beat, and she jumped at the sound of her own footfalls. A raven suddenly flew in front of her and into the sky; she pointed her illuminated wand toward the tree it came from and saw a nest in it. As she was looking, a dead bird fell out from it and onto the ground. She stepped backward to avoid it hitting her and nearly turned around, her search for the Elder Wand saved for another day. Instead, she stayed where she was and took a few deep breaths.

"They're birds, Rowena. Just birds. They won't hurt you. They don't scare you. You're nearly to the place you found the Stone. Just keep going." And, after a minute, she did. It took her another ten minutes to reach the place she found the Stone. She had no particularly good reason for looking there, but it seemed as good a place as any and she got down on her knees and began to search, picking up every twig she saw, waving it around and hoping there was something more to the twig than appeared at first. She crawled around on her knees for so long that her khakis had turned nearly black with dirt.

Rowena gave up the search for a twig and began to try to remember what an elder tree would look like. If the wand was put back where it came from, there was a possibility that Leila had tried to graft it to an elder tree, or hide it near one as a clue. She tried to remember the defining characteristics of the tree, but all she could think of were the white blossoms it would have in springtime. Most of the trees around her had white blossoms. They seemed eerie and ghost-like under the faint glow from the moon.

As she studied the branches, looking for signs of anything strange, she heard noise behind her. She froze, refusing to turn around and see what sort of beast awaited her. It sounded like hoofs. Soon the one set was joined by more and more and she felt she had no choice but to turn and see what was there.

Staring at her in the darkness were eight sets of beady eyes, far taller than she was, and set in human faces. But still beneath them were horse's hooves. _Centaurs,_ she thought, and then backed slowly into the trunk of the tree.

The one in front, a black thoroughbred with a man's body nearly as dark as the night, spoke to her. "What are you doing trespassing in our forest, child?"

"I- I'm just looking around," she said, her head down, unable to face the powerful frame in front of her.

"In the middle of the night? This deep in the forest? Humans haven't reached this place in hundreds of years, and you are in our territory."

"I'm sorry. I'll leave."

"No, I'm afraid we can't let that happen. Now that you are in our part of the forest, you are subject to our law. And our law has very specific methods of dealing with trespassers."

The great black centaur leaned down and picked her up, squeezing her too tightly, and began to gallop even deeper into the forest. He made no attempt to shield her from branches. The rough bark cut open her skin and left her bleeding. With no other options, and going half-mad in pain, Rowena began to scream. "Rhys! Professor Finney! Someone! Help me!" Her wand thankfully still in her hand, she began to send up red sparks.

"They won't do you any good, here, child. The tree cover is too dense."

Unfortunately, the centaur was right. The sparks she sent up hit the top of a nearby tree, and the leaves, dry from lack of water, caught fire. Fiery branches began to fall to the ground, catching twigs and foliage on fire in front of them. The centaurs abruptly turned around and began to gallop away from the spreading fire. One of the others, now far ahead of the one carrying Rowena, turned back to say, "Drop the child! She's slowing you down!" On command, Rowena found herself being flung onto the forest floor while the herd of centaurs continued to run from the flames.

Rowena pulled herself to her feet, trying to ignore the sore spots developing around her waist. She wasted a moment to look back and see what had become of the fire; it was spreading, moving from tree to tree easily in the densely forested area and climbing over the ground. "Aguamenti," she said, pointing her wand at the flames, but her meager attempt at water wasn't enough to fight the raging fire. It was moving closer and quickly; she knew she couldn't fight it off alone. Turning on her heel, she ran away from the flames, absentmindedly hoping that it would herd her back toward the school.

Never much for running in the first place, the rough terrain of the forest was too much for her and she tripped over a tree root. Before she could get up again, she felt the flames licking at her ankle and it was all she could do to hold them off. Her skin was burning, but she ignored the pain and hobbled to her feet. The pain in her leg was almost blinding her and she ran with only vague attention to the silhouettes of trees. Even as the flames caught up to her, she slowed, noticing one of the silhouettes ahead of her was moving. From a distance it looked something like a centaur, or a unicorn, but it lacked the man's body that would distinguish the former, and was far too dark to be the latter.

Scared, but choosing the unknown creature over the known dangers of the fire, she kept moving forward, but cautiously. The creature seemed to notice her and moved closer. It was like a horse, but skeletal, pitch black, and winged. If Rowena didn't know any better, she'd have thought the creature was a Thestral. The fire had slowed some and the animal approached her, opening its wings and kneeling down. Rowena was certain it wanted her to climb on. She hesitated, having never been one to trust creatures in the first place, but especially with her burned leg, she knew she wouldn't be able to make it to the edge of the forest alone. She climbed on.

There was no good place on the Thestral - if it was a Thestral - to hold on, but she eventually rested her hands in the crest between its wings, bracing herself with her legs as the animal rose into the air and above the treetops. Rowena never minded heights much, and even played Chaser for Gryffindor during fourth year, so she looked down to see if she could get an idea of where in the forest they were.

What made it hardest to tell was the amount of smoke and flames rising from the dense trees, and a wave of guilt washed over her. Acres of forest habitat were disappearing beneath her as the result of her carelessness and recklessness. Rhys probably wouldn't speak to her for weeks.

And then there was the issue of her near-certain expulsion.

She didn't have much time to think about it, however, because the Thestral (but it couldn't be a Thestral) landed in front of the small stone house where Professor Finney lived and then galloped back toward the Forbidden Forest. Without anything better to do, despite being three o'clock in the morning, Rowena knocked.

It took awhile for Professor Finney to reach the door, but when he did he was fully dressed. "Bloody hell, Rowena. It's the middle of the night. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I- er, um, just look," she said, stepping backwards and gesturing vaguely toward the Forest, smoke still rising above the trees, the air seemingly wrinkled in the heat.

"Dumbledore's beard! What happened?"

"Shouldn't we fight the fire first? I promise to explain later. My own _aguamenti_ wasn't strong enough to fight it alone."

"You were probably just distracted if you were in the midst of it. Come on, then." Rowena began limping behind him, her burned ankle searing in pain. "Wait, are you hurt?"

"Just a little. Deal with it later, Professor. The Forest is burned enough as it is."

"If you're certain." At the edge of the Forest, Professor Finney held up his wand and a burst of water turned into a wave when it reached the ground. As he guided the water toward the advancing flames, he risked a look at Rowena. "Well then, do you plan on helping me?"

Rowena nodded, but couldn't cast the spell non-verbally. "_Aguamenti!"_ Unlike her first attempt earlier that day, Rowena managed enough water to help some, moving away from her Professor's much more successful attempt to cover more ground. Within about fifteen minutes, the fire was under control and the two pulled back from the forest, exhausted from the effort.

Soon the pair was sitting at the dining table in Professor Finney's house, Rowena drinking a glass of pumpkin juice and Professor Finney with what he insisted was just a cup of tea. The look on his face as he swallowed left her thinking it was stronger. "So, Rowena, do you care to explain yourself?"

"Not really," she replied, but one look at his stern expression convinced her to keep speaking. "But I will if I have to."

"I think you'd better."

"Remember in class, how I was talking about the Elder Wand?"

"Yes, I do." A look of understanding dawned on his face. "Oh no, Rowena. You didn't go looking for it? I told you that's dangerous magic you're dealing with! I would have expected you to leave it alone."

"But my mother..."

"I really don't know what to tell you about thinking you saw your mother."

"I saw her. I did. And I really don't want to have anything to do with the Elder Wand, but since I do now, I just wanted to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. So I decided to come out tonight." She told him how she found out the last known location of the wand was here at Hogwarts with Leila Weasley during her seventh year, how maybe she decided to hide it, the way the Resurrection Stone had been hidden as well.

"The Resurrection Stone?" Professor Finney interrupted. "Its existence is just a myth. That and the Invisibility Cloak. There's proof that the wand exists, I suppose, but not the rest of the Deathly Hallows. They were just flourishes added to the Harry Potter legend over the years to make it more interesting."

"Like it wasn't already interesting enough?" Rowena blurted out, but managed to keep her mouth shut about the cloak she was presently carrying in her pocket.

"You know how tales spread, Rowena. Like rumors. Someone tells the story, the next person adds a detail or two to spice it up, and so on. It's been a thousand years, Rowena. You have to remember that. There's a group of people - and their numbers are growing - who believe that Harry's story is just a morality tale made up for everyone to learn from. Good over evil, the power of choice, the corruptibility of power, all that sort of thing. You're wasting your time trying to unite the Hallows, and the wand itself is dangerous. And in the process of all this time wasting, you've destroyed half the forest. Were you planning on explaining that part?"

"Oh, right. Yes. Well, there were Centaurs-"

"You ventured into Centaur territory?!"

"Not on purpose; I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going," she said.

"That much is obvious. You're lucky you escaped with your life! How did you get back?"

"Well, I panicked and forgot I was alone. I started calling for Rhys or you or anyone. I sent up red sparks - that's what Rhys said he was supposed to do if there was trouble in the forest - but they hit a dry branch and caught fire. The Centaurs started running away from it and dropped me so they could move faster."

Professor Finney took his time composing his thoughts, but Rowena could tell he had something to say, so she waited for him. "Off the record, then, setting that fire was probably for the best. It's the only way they would've let you go. But you were still in the heart of the forest. How did you make it here?"

"I started to run. I tripped and burned my ankle a little - let it alone, Professor, it isn't that bad. Anyway, a strange animal appeared, sort of like a black horse with wings. It was really skinny, and scared me at first. But it took me on its back and flew here."

"You can see Thestrals, Rowena?"

"It _was_ a Thestral, then? I was sure it couldn't be. I hadn't seen one before tonight."

Professor Finney took a large gulp of his tea and sat with a blank expression on his face for an agonizing few moments. "Is it possible you saw a Centaur die tonight?"

Blurred memories from the evening made their way through her head. She was certain she hadn't. "Maybe. That would make sense I guess. Thank you, Professor." She got up to leave.

"Wait, Rowena. We still haven't discussed your punishment. You snuck out of school in the middle of the night, went into the Forbidden Forest alone, upset a herd of Centaurs, and burned down half of their territory. Don't you dare think you are getting off easy about this."

"Shouldn't I talk to Headmaster Malfoy about it?"

"Yes, that's a good idea. I'll just call him down-"

"Wait, please. It's still the middle of the night." She made to feign a yawn, but it soon became authentic. "Could I get some sleep first, please? Before we talk to him?"

"Okay. But don't think that resting will make me forget what we have planned."

"I won't, Professor. Thanks for the pumpkin juice. And - well, I _am_ sorry, you know. The fire was an accident."

"I know it was. That's why you haven't been expelled yet. Good night now. Get some rest."

Exhausted, Rowena began to walk back toward the large doors of the castle. Dawn had yet to break over the horizon; everything was nearly as dark as it was when she had ventured out hours beforehand. Her mind ran in a hundred different directions as she trudged along - the fire, her pending punishment, the Thestrals, the Wand, her mother - and left very little room for paying attention to her surroundings. If she had been paying attention, she might have noticed the sound of footsteps as she made her way toward the stairs inside, or the faint light from a lit wand that illuminated the path in front of her. As it were, Serah Macmillan's presence at the top of the stairs took her completely by surprise.

"Serah? What are you doing out at this time?"

"Prefect duty. Which means that it's my job to ask you what you are doing out at this time."

Rowena paused and looked up at Serah. Though she was two steps above her on the staircase, Rowena was tall enough and Serah short enough that their eyes were almost level. Rowena couldn't help but think that Serah must often get this shift, because through her glasses, her eyes were magnified but wide open, with no hint at a need for sleep. "Honestly, you don't want to know. I'm going to bed."

With that, she began to make her way past her classmate, but Serah stuck out an arm. "Ten points from Gryffindor. It'll be more once you say what you were up to."

"I was talking to Professor Finney, okay! And he's already guaranteed me a sitting with Headmaster Malfoy tomorrow to talk about punishment. As I already have that settled, I really don't think it's any business of yours what it is that got me into trouble."

She skirted around her and began walking briskly up the stairs. Behind her, she could hear Serah calling out. "But- this is about that wand you were talking about, isn't it? Isn't it?! Rowena, you are going to get expelled if you're not careful. Why won't you tell me what you're up to?"

Rowena could barely hear her as she climbed yet another staircase, skipping the trick step. Serah, while kind at heart, had always been nosy, and couldn't ever figure out why someone would leave her out of a plan. But she was a Hufflepuff in the worst way. She couldn't tell a lie, which meant that when asked about something directly, she couldn't keep a secret. She saw the best in everyone and wanted everyone to be her friend, and was annoyingly pleasant at times. Not to mention the fact that rule breaking, to her, was something unfathomable, something she believed should be punished with as much severity as she could get away with. Rowena couldn't count the number of times she lost 5 points for Gryffindor because of the extra button of her top that she always kept undone. Yes, Serah was bound to be Head Girl next year.

While it was certainly true that Rowena didn't want _anyone _involved with the whole Elder Wand thing, the last person she wanted to know about it was Serah Macmillan. Talking in front of her during Care of Magical Creatures was completely imprudent, and Rowena regretted it now. She should've just talked to Rhys one night over the weekend in their Common Room. In private. Things would be so much simpler without Serah or Genevieve hanging over her shoulder. Or Professor Finney, she remembered, and despaired over what the morning would bring.


	4. Research

"Bloody hell, Rowena, you did _what?_ What were you thinking? Wait - don't answer that because you bloody well weren't. Into the forest. Alone. Middle of the night. On a hunch you hadn't even thought through? Dumbledore's Beard, I thought you were smart." Rhys was pacing back and forth in the Common Room, not even bothering to look at Rowena as he ranted. Most of the rest of the Gryffindors were down at breakfast, and Rowena had just finished explaining what had happened to her the night before - and how she had to meet with Professor Finney and Headmaster Malfoy to discuss her punishment.

Rowena sighed. "Will you at least let me explain myself?"

"What's left to explain? Was there some piece of evidence you had but haven't told me about yet? Why the hell did you leave me out anyway, when I know so much-" For the first time that Rowena could remember, Rhys cut his own speech off mid-sentence.

"Know so much about what?"

"Nothing. I mean, you know, the War of the Wand is the only piece of history I can tolerate studying. You might have thought of running your plan by me first. Anyone who knows anything about the Death Stick would know better than to leave it lying dormant in the Forest at our bloody school. Genevieve was right - we should research first, plan our steps." Rowena didn't like the way he referred to the three of them as a team, but she was past the point of correcting him. If they wanted to get themselves in the kind of trouble she found last night, that was on their heads.

"_Dumbledore_, you sound like me. When did we switch places?" With that, Rowena successfully changed the topic away from her own pending punishment, and their conversation was back into its routine, and far more tolerable, banter.

They headed down to breakfast after that, their fight over for the time being. Breakfast was nearly over, and when they sat at their usual places, an owl was already waiting there, pacing back and forth. When it saw her, it stuck its leg out, giving her a look of annoyance. Rowena detached the note, thanked the bird, and sent it on its way.

_10:00. Headmaster Malfoy's office. Athena._ was the entirety of the note, but even without a signature, Rowena recognized Professor Finney's handwriting.

"Well?" said Rhys, reading over her shoulder. "How bad do you think it's going to be?"

"No idea, but I'm not thrilled to find out."

Rowena couldn't decide if the morning was passing too quickly or too slowly for her liking as she sat through Transfiguration. When the class ended, Rowena couldn't decide if it had gone by too quickly or not quickly enough. She had yet to visit Headmaster Malfoy's office and had to ask Rhys, who was far more prone to misbehavior, for directions. Despite normally walking quickly and with purpose, she trudged along toward her destination, trying her best to savor what could possibly be her last moments in the school. She was torn between putting the meeting off and getting it over with, but all the same, she arrived at nearly spot on 10:00.

She looked at the gargoyle standing guard over the tower Rhys had told her to go to. Not finding much of an entryway, she remembered the note she had received and said, "Er- Athena?" The gargoyle nodded politely and moved aside to reveal a spiral staircase. The circular office she entered was simple and uncluttered. A large desk sat opposite the entryway; a pile of parchment and a quill were its only occupants. Two bookshelves were placed beside a window, each filled with titles listed in alphabetical order by author on one, and by subject on the other. Rowena couldn't help but smile at the simplicity and organization there; it was a feat she could never accomplish, but it nonetheless made her respect her Headmaster all the more.

The only part of the room that stood in contrast to the neat style of Headmaster Malfoy was the walls. Every spare inch was covered in portraits of Hogwarts professors over the years, so cramped in space that there were even pictures hanging inches from the floor. The Headmaster was already seated at his desk, with Professor Finney in a stiff wooden chair across from him, but the only noise in the room came from the portraits of old Headmasters and Headmistresses along the wall, and they all seemed to be shouting at her.

"The Forbidden Forest?!"

"The middle of the night?"

"Attacked by Centaurs!"

"Started a fire!"

One of the more stately portraits silenced the others and turned to the present Headmaster. "Expel her, Headmaster. I haven't heard such a blatant disregard for the rules, or such defacement of school property, since that Zabini boy broke into poor Dumbledore's grave. There is no hope for her."

"Thank you, Headmasters and Headmistresses, that is quite enough. I'm sure you all have places to be now," Headmaster Malfoy said, and at his request the portraits started walking through them, muttering the whole way as they went out to visit their friends among the Hogwarts hallways. "Miss Potter, please sit down," he said, addressing Rowena for the first time. "It seems we have a lot to talk about. Professor Finney has informed me of the events of last night, as well as the circumstances that led to the fire. Sending up red sparks was, in most circumstances, the right thing to do, and it was only the special conditions of the Forest at the time that caused the fire to start.

"Forest fires can be natural, and actually aid in the long-term process of growth- like the burning of a phoenix; it is likely that a fire would have started there soon anyway, especially with the warm, dry weather we've been having. Due to that, the only effect your starting the fire seems to have had is that you escaped with your life, something which would be unfathomable without nature's intervention. Your contribution to the forest fire will not be punished.

"Therefore, the only thing I have to punish you for is being outside your Common Room in the middle of the night, and I think one night a week for the rest of the term re-shelving library books is sufficient punishment for that. You will start tonight at 7:00, and return each Tuesday at the same time."

Rowena stared, open-mouthed, at the Headmaster. His sharp, pointed features and stern expression had given her the impression that he was not one to go easy on his pupils for misbehaving. In the six years she had been at Hogwarts, his hair had lost what was left of its strawberry blond color, now entirely silver with age, and it had only added to his strict countenance. To be let off with a punishment she might even enjoy seemed too good to be true, and it took her a good amount of effort to stammer out a "Thank you."

Headmaster Malfoy smiled kindly at her and answered the bewildered expression on her face. "I find that many students with an otherwise clean record have reasons for their first disobedience, and deserve a bit of grace. Naturally, the extent of punishment increases with the number of times it is committed, so consider this a warning. You are free to go, Miss Potter, Professor Finney. Thank you both for your time."

As they walked out together, Rowena couldn't help but interrogate her professor. "Is what he said true, about the forest needing to regenerate sometimes?"

"Yes, it is. It had been a few hundred years since the last time, and in another twenty or so, I'm sure we'll see it thriving even more than it was. Dying and rebirth is common in nature; sometimes it's only through destruction that we can move closer to our potential. Nature understands that better than humanity, I think. But isn't that usually the case?"

"I suppose so. Thanks again, and I'll see you in class tomorrow," she replied as they separated.

That evening, Rowena reported to the library at 6:55, ready to do the work her detention required. The librarian, Franklin Dewey, was a dusty old man, bespectacled and plump. He stood taller than Rowena, the few times he stood up, but he spent most of his time slouching behind his desk, a stack of books piled so high that usually one could only see his magnified eyes. Behind his back, students called him Owley rather than Dewey, but he had a respect for books and history that led Rowena in turn to respect him.

"Good evening, Rowena," he said, looking up from his pile of books. "You'll be here for two hours tonight; the stacks of books you need to re-file are over by the work desks."

She looked over to where he was haphazardly gesturing and saw the large stack of books. It seemed he'd been waiting for a detention so he wouldn't have to take care of it himself, but Rowena wasn't bothered by it. Spending her free time in the library was nothing unusual for her, and she found the monotonous work left her free to think through how she might find the Elder Wand.

Her thinking was significantly aided about a quarter of the way through the pile, when every book she had to put back was related to the War of the Wand in some way. She silently thanked whatever professor had assigned the topic (could it have been Professor Binns? She couldn't remember the year or term they studied it) and began flipping through the books before putting them away, skimming for information about the end of the war and Leila Weasley's part in it.

It was no surprise when Rowena found herself leaning against a bookshelf, absorbed in one of the books. It was entitled _The Disappearance of the Elder Wand_ and contained theory after theory as to what could have happened to it. Most of them seemed to be folklore or conspiracy theories, but they interested her nonetheless. When she got to the end of the book with no new discoveries, she re-shelved it and picked up the next - an unauthorized biography on Leila Weasley's life. The author was listed as Pinocchio Fibmaker, who didn't seem to have any credentials or special connection to the woman's life. So after a few moments, that book was filed away as well.

This continued for some time, leaving her more absorbed in some books than others, but soon she found Mr. Dewey standing behind her. "I see you're working hard, Rowena. Perhaps you might work a little faster under supervision." With that he took to following her about the library, chiding her with a gentle cough any time she so much as opened a book. Being followed around a cramped library by a tall, stout man was making her claustrophobic, which only doubled the truth that she would work faster under his supervision. Within half an hour she was finished, and vowed to return to the library in her free time if she had the chance.

Her chance, however, didn't come at all that week. Apparation tests were scheduled for Friday, and Wednesday and Thursday were extra practice days for anyone who needed it. Rowena, for one, definitely needed it. In addition, her Ancient Runes professor, Professor Austen, had assigned them three feet of translated text from the English of the 1600s. The work was that of Shakespeare - no one was sure whether he was magical or Muggle - and it was particularly difficult to translate since the original had been written in meter. Half the time, the jokes she translated from _Much Ado About Nothing_ made sense to her, but half the time she wasn't sure at all what was so funny about Beatrice's insults. While she enjoyed the work, it was tedious and occupied all of her free time.

By the time Friday's Apparation tests came, Rowena was no closer to finding the Elder Wand than she had been nearly a week beforehand when her mother first appeared to her. The sixth years and younger seventh years stood crowded in The Three Broomsticks; they were taken outside one by one and asked to Apparate down the street. Rowena was trying to keep out of the way, in a corner with just Rhys, but Genevieve Scamander walked across the room to join them. "Hi Ro, Rhys. Did you two find out any more about the Elder Wand?"

"Will you be quiet, Gen? I really don't want people knowing about that."

"Why not? It's not like searching for it is against school rules or anything. Well, unless you break school rules anyway, I guess. But no matter now. You still haven't answered the question. Have you found out anything else?"

"No. I've been a bit busy this week, with Ancient Runes homework and the extra practices for Apparating. I'm scared I'm not going to pass; it seems the only bit of practical magic I don't have a knack for."

"It's no matter, really. You'll get it I'm sure. Anyway, I'm not taking Ancient Runes, so I had some free time this week, and spent a lot of it in the library looking up information on the War of the Wand. Someone went and put all my books away though. It made it difficult to find them again."

"Wait - it was _you _who pulled all those books out? Dewey had me putting them away for my detention Tuesday evening. I looked through a few of them but didn't find anything interesting. What did you find out?"

Genevieve paused to think for a moment. "Well, I found record of a Leila Weasley living in Godric's Hollow the year after she would have graduated Hogwarts."

"Seriously? I'm from there! I wonder if my family has any connections to her. That's awesome, Gen. Thanks."

"No problem. But next time you might want to do the research before the fieldwork - it could save you a few detentions." She smiled at her as her name was called to complete her test. "I'll talk to you two after, okay?"

As she walked away, Rowena turned to Rhys. "You know, maybe she's not so bad."

"Who ever said she was?"

"I don't know. She's just not you I guess," she replied, then looked away. "I wonder what we can learn from Godric's Hollow."

"Yeah, me too," Rhys said, but in a way that made Rowena question whether he had even been listening.

Professor Smith, the Herbology teacher, was Rowena's supervisor during her Apparation test. The woman was strict and wanted things done a certain way, but was also encouraging with her students. In all, Rowena was glad to have her; it was more like having a mentor than an evaluator. "Remember the three D's, Rowena. I'll be looking for you down the street."

She concentrated as hard as she could on her destination, two blocks down from the Three Broomsticks. Bits of doubt tried to creep her way in, and she pushed them aside. _Doubt is _not _one of the three D's, Ro. Just do what you know you're capable of._ With that, she turned on the spot.

Her insides felt like they were squished together in a piece of miniscule space; she was paralyzed; she couldn't breathe. And then it was over, and she was looking back at the place where she had stood a moment ago. Something felt funny the moment she landed, but within a split second, the fingernail she had nearly left behind placed itself squarely back onto her thumb and Professor Smith smiled at her. "Congratulations. You passed your test."

Rowena could have danced all the way back to the Common Room. Rhys joined her a few minutes later, a grin on his face that likely rivaled the one on her own. They caught each other's eye and, as if on cue, they moved toward each other to hug. Rowena could count on one hand the number of times they had hugged over the years, but it seemed to be an important enough occasion to merit one. Rhys was a good four inches shorter than her, but it didn't matter; something about the hug felt right, or at least fitting to the occasion. When they pulled apart and the moment for celebration seemed to have passed, Rowena said, "Okay, Rhys, I have a crazy idea."

"You've had a lot of crazy ideas this past week. But at least you're telling me first for once. What is it this time?"

"Well, tomorrow's a Hogsmeade day. And we just got our Apparating licenses. We're adults. So... no one would notice if we Apparated to, say, Godric's Hollow, as long as we were back by the end of the day. Anyone who was looking for us would just assume we were somewhere else. I could visit Papa, fill him in on what's been happening, and see if maybe he knows anything about Leila Weasley. Maybe there are clues in town about her legacy. And, well, I'm not dumb enough to make the same mistake again and go alone. I need you to come with me. Please?"

"I don't see the harm in it, I guess. It would be nice to see your father, and I've always liked Godric's Hollow. I had family there, you know. My grandfather lived there until he married my grandmother, but they visit every year and sometimes I go with them. So yes, count me in."

"You never told me you had family there! Even when you visited over the summer."

"I guess it never came up; like I said, they moved away long before I was born. To me, it was just a place they liked to go on holiday. Anyway, do you have a plan?"

"I imagine we should just go down to Hogsmeade with Jacie or Genevieve, then separate from them and find an alley to Apparate in. We'll just have to make sure to be back by dinner."

"Sounds good to me."

They spent their evening playing chess (Rowena won every game), then retired to bed, reiterating their plans to leave for Hogsmeade after breakfast.

Godric's Hollow, she'd heard, used to be a tiny village where Muggles and wizards co-existed well into the 21st century. However, the attraction of being near Harry Potter's memorial was too strong, and Godric's Hollow became a busy town that soon housed only wizards. There were many strange instances in the 2400s of long-time Muggle residents suddenly realizing that their deepest ambition had always been to live somewhere else. Ironically, as the wizarding population exploded in the area, the Town Square moved across town from where it had originally been, and in the midst of a period of relative ignorance about the ancient hero, his home and the monument that had been in the center of the square were destroyed in order to expand the already-ancient graveyard, now located on the outskirts of town.

At least, that's how the legend went. Rowena thought it was a terrible story - who would destroy that sort of monument? - and they probably just told it to attract tourists. There were a few other villages in the area that claimed to be Harry's birthplace, but their stories were far less elaborate, and often self-contradictory. But if anyone would take her up on it, she would bet 10 Galleons that the whole section of the church graveyard devoted to Harry Potter and his descendents was fake.

Apparating out of Hogsmeade was surprisingly easy. Rowena noted that this was one of the times when having very few friends came in useful. They focused their attention on an alleyway in the new downtown of Godric's Hollow, about a ten-minute walk from Rowena's place. Arriving with no difficulty beyond the usual suffocation of Apparation, the two walked in near silence to her house, a good-sized manor in a nice neighborhood. When they arrived, Rowena hesitated for a moment on her doorstep, then knocked. No one answered. She knocked a second and third time, and still no one came. Grateful she had decided to bring the key, she let herself in and beckoned Rhys to follow her.

They began looking around inside, and Rowena's eyes landed on the calendar in the kitchen. As she studied it, she exclaimed, "Oh! Of course. I should have thought."

"Ro, what are you talking about?"

"Papa is away on business. He's always gone this time of year; I hadn't paid attention to the date. But he won't mind that we came. I guess we can just look around or something, while we're here. Maybe there's something Mum kept from her search for the Elder Wand."

They split up, both familiar with the house, Rhys taking the more public locations, and Rowena going back to her parents' bedroom. Naturally, as a child she hadn't spent much time there, and she found it fascinating to look at how her father lived. Everything in the room was nice, but a little bit out of date, as if her mother picked them out for their wedding and her father had never bothered to redecorate. An elaborate shelving system was built into one of the walls, and it was here that Rowena started her search. The system was a blend of open shelves, drawers, and cabinets, and she began to open them one at a time, not in any particular order, but just as they called to her. One of the larger cupboards was the first thing she went to open, but it was locked. Not expecting it to work, she said, "Alohomora." The door swung open on its hinge.

Inside, vial after vial contained bits of a silvery liquid or gas, some filled to the brim, others only skimmed along the bottom. Nearly all of them were labeled with dates. _Memories_, she thought, though she couldn't figure out why she knew this. She closed the cabinet and opened the one next to it, not surprised, but relieved all the same, to find a Pensieve.

If there was any place her mother might have stored information about her search for the Elder Wand, memories seemed a likely bet. What other memories would be worth keeping? Rowena pulled a few out of the cabinet at random and began to set up the Pensieve. Picking up the nearest vial, she poured it into the basin and looked in.


	5. Recollection

Rowena felt like she was falling. When the dizzying fall stopped, however, and her surroundings came into focus, she felt like nothing had happened. She still stood by the shelving unit in her parents' bedroom. Nothing at all seemed to have changed; then she noticed her father standing beside her. "Papa! Sorry, I didn't know you'd be coming home."

He took no notice of her, but she realized his clothes looked about ten years out of date. Maybe she had fallen into a memory after all; maybe it was _his. _As he finished getting ready and walked out into the hallway, Rowena followed. She studied her father as they walked - he seemed to have less gray in his hair, to stand taller and less wearily than he had at Christmastime. Her attention completely diverted from walking itself, she suddenly found herself tripping over a toy left carelessly in the hallway. Her father got ahead of her as she bent down to examine it - an old doll she once had, but had forgotten about. It had been her favorite. She went to pick it up and take it with her, but though she was solid, she wasn't able to move it. _I can't change the past_, she realized. _I can walk and trip and be solid, but I can't move anything because it has already happened. _The thought saddened her. She picked up her pace as she heard voices coming from the kitchen. "-not exactly what I'd have you be doing, but I know by now I can't stop you."

"Why aren't you more interested in this?! We could be immortal! We wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore!"

"You are giving up your chance to know our daughter over a reckless theory, Morgana. How am I supposed to be okay with that? I know what you plan to do with her before you leave for France."

"It's better that way," Rowena's mother said, turning away from her husband. "You know it's better if she never knew me. You know I was never keen on-"

But Rowena never heard what it was her mother wasn't keen on, because she was distracted by a young black-haired child playing in the next room. She recognized her own pudgy figure - she must have been about six - and the smushed face of their half-Kneazle, Tiffany. Forgetting her parents' conversation, she rushed over to the other room, and sat down across from herself.

"Tiffany, come back! I'm trying to pet you!" her younger self was saying, rushing to get her arms around the Kneazle's middle. A growl from her otherwise friendly pet didn't detract her. "Tiffany! You are my best friend!" But the animal wasn't acting like it. She arched her back and hissed, and began swatting at the child with claws out. The elder of the Rowenas impulsively reached out to pull back the cat, but withdrew her hands, remembering there was nothing she could do about it. As she pulled back, not able or willing to watch herself be mauled, she looked down, suddenly paying attention to the faint scars along her hands and arms. She had written them off as the kind of childhood accidents that you never remember having, but she noticed the younger Rowena was bleeding from the very places she was scarred.

In a moment, she recollected that this incident was why she hated and feared animals so much. The knowledge that the event playing out in front of her had happened came to her from the deepest part of her mind, and it seemed to be struggling to make itself known. Part of her mind was holding back the memory, like it was drowning and the rest of her brain was trying to keep it from surfacing. All she had remembered before falling into the Pensieve was that she and Tiffany kept their distance from each other, never paying the other any heed. But those memories all came after the age of seven.

The young girl had escaped the half-Kneazle's attacks and wound her way toward the kitchen. "Mummy! Papa! Tiffany hurt me!"

Morgana looked down at her daughter, scraped and slightly bleeding on her hands and arms, crying unashamedly as only a child can do. "You'll be just fine, Rowie. Go wash up."

"Morgana! No, come here, Ro, it'll be okay." Her father crouched down to her level and pulled her into a hug, stroking her hair and shushing her. He pulled back and wiped away the blood, trying his best to heal the cuts with his wand. Healing magic had never been his forte, but the cuts faded until all that was left were the scars she still carried.

Her younger self plodded out of the room and over to an easy chair, book in hand, apparently unconcerned by her mother's presence and the events with the Kneazle, but the Rowena watching the memory was gobsmacked. Her mother, her _mother_, was there in the kitchen, talking with the family as if she had been there all along. Was there more she hadn't told her that day when she appeared as not-quite-ghost?

Their daughter out of the way, her parents went back to arguing about France and the Elder Wand, their voices raising. The louder they got, the more times Rowena glanced over her shoulder at her younger self, but the girl remained absorbed in her book. She wasn't sure if it was a Silencing Charm placed around the kitchen, her own ability to live uninterrupted inside a story, or - and this is what scared her - familiarity with the sound of her parents arguing that kept her so unconcerned.

"I'm gone, Aquila. I'll come back when I find the Wand. All this _noble _talk you have about not wanting the power - we'll see if you really mean it then." She all but spat the words at him. Then, a breath later, her voice oozed with sweetness. "Rowena, sweetie, come here a moment." Obediently, the young girl set down her book and walked up to her mother. "Okay, now stand still please," she said, taking out her wand.

"Morgana, are you sure you need to -"

"We talked about this. I may not come back. It will be easier this way and you know it."

"I'm not sure she'll think so when she's old enough -"

"Well, if everything doesn't go as planned, she'll never know the difference. And if it does - she'll have her Mummy back in her life. Why wouldn't that make her happy? Goodbye, Aquila." The seventeen-year-old Rowena could her the finality in her voice, and without further protest, her father left the room to wait.

As soon as he left, Morgana reached into the cupboard for a vial, then placed her wand at her daughter's temple. A silver stream came out, and she directed it into the vial. "That's a good girl. We'll just save this day for when you're older okay?"

"Okay, Mummy. When are you coming back, Mummy?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe next week. But maybe I'll be gone forever. But it won't matter. You won't remember that I was ever here. _Obliviate._**" **The girl's eyes became fuzzy, her balance unstable, as the spell took effect. But by the time she came to, her mother was out the door.

"Mum? Mum? Where are you?" she asked.

At her voice, her father came back into the room. "Rowena, what are you talking about, dear? Your mummy died during childbirth, remember? We've talked about this before. It's always been just you and me." To the child, he sounded self-confident and condescending, but the older girl could hear the resignation in his voice.

"Oh. Yeah. I just miss her, Daddy. I wish she were here with us."

"Me too, sweetie. Me too."

And suddenly, Rowena found herself back on her father's bedroom floor.

She had no desire to process her emotions just then. She catalogued the facts in the back of her mind as she decided on the next memory to enter into. Her mother was not only alive well after her sixth birthday, she had been an everyday part of her world. She had stolen her memories, Obliviated days at a time from her mind. The moment her mother left - presumably for France - her father began to lie to her about her entire childhood. _Just breathe, Ro. Stick to the facts. You don't have bloody _time _to be angry about this right now,_she told herself. But her ability to stay rational under the most trying of situations was being tested.

Some of the memories were labeled. She found a vial with "_Memoires du Monsieur DuPont_**" **written neatly along the outside, and though she didn't understand French, she recognized the language. If it was in French, it must have been from her mother's time there, she reasoned, and poured it into the Pensieve. The liquid-gas spread out evenly, and for a moment, Rowena hesitated, seemingly hypnotized by its movement. Did she really want to know more about what her childhood was really like? Did she want to see the fate of her mother - regardless how different it was from what she had believed a week ago?

Rowena wasn't certain of the answers. Part of her just wanted to crawl back in time and forget about everything. She had come to terms with growing up without her mother. She loved her father and respected him. They got along wonderfully. All she had worried about was what creature might attack her in Care of Magical Creatures, and whether she would get an O or only an E on her mock N.E.W.T.s in Transfiguration.

But she couldn't leave herself hanging. She felt separated from the Rowena she faced in the memory - a Rowena who seemed to have a completely different understanding of childhood than she recalled now at seventeen. She wanted to know what really happened to her - what shaped her as a person - even if all that now remained of her childhood memories were Obliviated fragments and the personalized fairy stories her father told her to fill in the gaps.

Even if she wanted to, Rowena couldn't imagine being able to let go now. There was the possibility that her mother had lied about her vanishing after she used the stone - that she was still out in the world somewhere, an apparition that could come back to literally haunt her. She had no choice. She had to find the wand and do what she could to become the Master of Death - whatever that might mean for her relationship with her mother. And if she was going to embark on that particular quest, she would have to know as much as possible. She plunged into the memory.

When her world stopped spinning, she found herself in a quaint countryside along a river. Though she had never been there, she could only assume this was France. A pair walking by speaking the ancient language confirmed her she moved closer to them, she realized that one of the figures was her mother. She was talking in a harsh voice with a tall young man with dark hair and dark eyes. Her French sounded forced and imperfect, and Rowena found herself wishing she had studied French more in Ancient Runes. "_Où est la Baguette du Sureau? Je sais que vous sait!"_

"_Non, je ne sais pas! C'est vrai! C'est vrai!" _The man sounded desperate, and whatever he was saying, Rowena believed it was the truth. Something about his intonation, or the look in his eyes, or the way he held onto the loose fabric of her mother's shirt at the collar.

All of a sudden, the memory changed. It wasn't that she had gone anywhere or the scenery was different - the man still stood pleading with her mother over something, they still walked along a quiet river in the countryside - but the quality had worsened. The man's voice sounded hollow and in a different baritone as he shouted something angrily in French. Her mother's voice, also hollow, took on a sweet tone as she seemed to plead innocence.

The image was blurry, but the man appeared to throw her in the river. "Help!" her mother called. "Help, I can't swim! _Aidez-moi! Je ne peux pas nager!_**"**

It was the last Rowena heard before the blurry image of her mother vanished in the water , as quickly as she noted that her mother was dead, she found herself back in her parents' room, Rhys standing there beside her.

"Ro? What in the world just happened? One minute you weren't here at all, and then the next, there you are on the floor. That is probably one of the strangest things I've ever seen. And you have to admit I have seen a lot of really strange things."

Rowena sat up, then slowly made her way to where Rhys had perched on her father's bed. "Have you ever heard of a Pensieve?"

"I've heard of being pensive... but not _a _Pensieve."

****"Come here, I'll show you." They walked over to the great stone basin, still swirling with the memory of Monsieur DuPont, whoever that was. "Basically, you can extract memories and save them, then re-live them later. When you weren't sure where I was, I was inside the memory."

"How did you know that's what this basin was for?"

Rowena paused. "I'm - I'm not sure, actually. I think, though, it has to do with something my mother would do to me when I was a kid."

Rhys looked more baffled than he had in second year when they were learning the basics of dueling. He and Rowena were partnered, but when he yelled "_Expelliarmus," _his own wand jumped out of his hand and landed five feet away. In his current state of bewilderment, though, Rowena had a bit of an explanation. "Remember I told you how my mother said she didn't actually die until I was seven? Well... it turns out she was around a lot more than she let on." She began to explain the first memory she witnessed, how her mother's presence had seemed normal to herself as a child, and how before she left, she Obliviated her daughter. "My guess is that she selectively deleted the parts of my memory that she was present for. During the memory, Tiffany started clawing me and attacking me. I don't remember that ever happening, but I also never knew why animals scared me so much. At the end of the memory, I asked Papa where Mum went. And, well, he told me she had never been around, that she died in childbirth."

"Wow. I mean, just, wow." After a few more attempts at a coherent sentence, Rhys managed to say, "But why would she have kept these memories?"

"When she left for France, she was hoping she would be able to find the Elder Wand and return. If that happened, she planned to show me the memories I had been walking around without, so I could have a memory of the memory. At least, that's what my best guess is. I'm not really sure what to think anymore. How can I, when I'm not even sure how much of my memory is real?"

Rhys awkwardly placed his arm around her shoulder. "Let's go back. It's getting late; people might start to wonder where we're at, soon. You can tell me the rest when we're at Hogwarts again."

"Okay," Rowena said, but she was reluctant to leave this place. As they walked around the corner of her house to Apparate, she asked him, "Did you find anything interesting?"

"Yes, but I'll tell you about it when we get back," he said, reaching out for her hand.

Rowena was glad Apparation only took a few moments. She wasn't sure she could wait much longer than that to find out what Rhys now knew. Suddenly they were pulled into blackness, but it didn't last long. Soon, they were at the far end of Hogsmeade, a few students still mingling about as the sun got lower in the sky. Gray clouds were piling in, and by the heaviness in the air, she was sure that rain would come soon.

No one was around them. Just as Rowena was getting ready to note that they were safe, Genevieve Scamander walked up beside them. At their confused looks, she said, "I heard the pop. I was listening for it though. I knew you two had disappeared somewhere. Were you off doing something romantic, or trying to find the Wand?"

"We weren't off-" Rowena said, at the same time as Rhys said, "Trying to find the Wand, but what's it matter to you?"

"I'm curious. I've always wanted an adventure."

Rowena and Rhys exchanged a look. She shrugged and said, "Okay, I'll tell you what we know."

As the trio walked through Hogsmeade, Rowena realized that as far as the search for the Elder Wand was concerned, they didn't know much. Everything she tried so far had been in vain. Even the lead that Genevieve gave them, to go to Godric's Hollow - well, they hadn't done much looking around after Rowena was distracted by the memories in her parents' room. Except that Rhys said he knew something. They had been walking with Genevieve in the middle, and Rowena had been doing much of the explaining. When she looked up to catch Rhys's attention, she realized he was walking far enough away from them that he could be considered on his own. "Rhys? What did you find at my house?"

"What? Oh, sorry. I was distracted. Looks like rain, doesn't it?"

"Yes, finally. But seriously - you said you would tell me when we were back. What is it that you found?"

"I was just looking at a handmade family tree. You really have been the only child of an only child for awhile now. That interested me."

"How long ago is the first Weasley on there? Did you find out if I'm related to Leila at all?"

"I don't remember exactly, probably 150 years or so. Leila wasn't on there."

It was unlike Rhys, these calculated sentences, the lack of rambling. Usually he spit out whatever words were in his head and made sense of them afterward. But they were nearly back to Hogwarts now; Rowena could ask him about it when Genevieve wasn't around. Maybe it was her presence, after all, that was making him uncomfortable. "That's too bad. After all this, we could have used an easy lead."

Genevieve said, "Yes, but if it was your mother who made that family tree, surely she would have gotten closer to finding it if Leila was on the tree. Was that really all you found, Rhys?"

"Well... yeah. Sorry, Ro."

"We're going to have to try something else, then. Meet me in the library tonight?"

"Sure thing, Gen. See you then." Back inside the castle, they split up to head to their separate common rooms, and on the long walk up to Gryffindor Tower, Rhys didn't say a word.


	6. Rain

Part of Rowena wished Genevieve would stop suggesting that clues about the Elder Wand would be found in the library. They had both looked separately - what could they find together? Rowena worked in silence, accepting the company of her classmate, but not relishing it. The hours passed as they pored through book after book, and Mr. Dewey gave them more than a few questioning glances. Not many people studied so hard on a Saturday night, after all. When he kicked them out at ten, Rowena was relieved and got up immediately. Genevieve, however, had much more persistence, checking out a book before they left. "Rowena, take this one, okay?"

"Why?"

"I found it as I was getting up and you never know - it might come in useful."

Rowena sighed and had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes as she placed the book in her satchel. One more book in thousands. Exactly what she needed. One more book to peruse. She loved to read, but this tediousness with no result was getting beyond her ability to tolerate it much longer. "Okay. Good night, Gen. I'll see you in the morning."

"'Night, Ro."

Rhys was nowhere to be found when she got back to the Gryffindor Common Room, but that didn't particularly surprise her. It was late, and something was obviously upsetting him. Hopefully he was just repaying her for her own silence after her mother first appeared and would talk to her about it in the morning. Maybe he'd found something useful after all.

But on the whole, she didn't want to think about Rhys's silence or her quest for the Elder Wand, so she scrounged through her satchel for homework to complete instead. After all, she hadn't had much time for actual school work the last few weeks, and the end of sixth year was a terrible time to get behind. The Common Room slowly emptied, but once she was alone, it took her a few minutes to realize it. Homework was straightforward, even easy, compared to a wild goose chase for a long-lost wand, and she had forgotten herself in completing it. Suppressing a yawn, she stuffed her papers away and began to get ready to go to bed. But in the time it took her to do close her satchel, she wasn't alone anymore.

Seeing her mother for the second time frightened her more than the first. Perhaps because of the memories she'd seen; perhaps because she was expecting her to stay away for awhile and let her work. At any rate, her feelings at their first encounter were those of warm disbelief. Now she was angry and suspicious. Especially since the Resurrection Stone was still safely in her trunk upstairs.

"Mum? You're back."

"I never left, really. Maintaining my form is hard work, but I'm bound here now, visible or invisible, until you can unite the Hallows and bring me back to life. How is that going?"

Rowena took a deep breath. "Well, I've destroyed the Forbidden Forest and read nearly every book in the library, but I don't think I'm any closer to getting information than I was. But Dumbledore knows I'm trying."

"Trying won't bring me back, Ro. You're better than that. I know it. You have to find the Wand! You have one week, Rowena, one more week to find it."

"Until the Stone can't keep you here any longer?" Rowena was quite possibly more surprised than Morgana to hear the hope in her voice. Who wanted their own mother to be gone again?

"No. Until there start to be consequences for your delay. I'm family! I'm your mother! Nothing should be more important than that. If you don't have that Wand by next Saturday, I will start proving to you that nothing will come between us. Be careful what you love, Rowena. I'll take something away from you for every day you are late." Morgana's voice was calm and even as she leaned forward in her chair, closer to her daughter. But there was no sparkle in her eye, no smile playing at her lips. Until that moment, Rowena had hoped that the mother she'd seen Obliviate her as a child, the mother who was cold and calculating toward her husband, was just a side of her that never appeared very often, that the memories she had witnessed just painted her mother in a bad light. Rowena knew then that it wasn't true, and all she could think was _Rhys. Not Rhys. Please don't take Rhys._

She tried to keep her voice steady. "Okay. Rhys and Genevieve and I - we'll do everything we can and we'll have the Wand in a week. I promise."

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean no, Rowie. That Scamander girl - she comes from untrustworthy blood, all of them believing in creatures that shouldn't be believed in, a naive little hope that gets in the way of real business. She's nothing but trouble. And Finnegan?! I can't believe you call that twit your friend. Always blabbering on about something or another, keeping you busy trying to save his grades. He's hiding something, Rowie, I'm sure of it. What kind of so-called best friend would hide something? I don't want to see you talking to them, working with them, sending them so much as a sympathetic glance this week. You have work that needs to be done, and I will make sure that you do it alone. Whether you see me or not, I'll be watching." She spoke flatly, but smiled at the end, a kind, motherly smile. "I love you, Rowie. I can't wait to be the mother I've always wanted to be for you."

With that, she was gone. As she left, Rowena remembered the flood of questions she had for her about the memories she'd seen. Were they real? Was she really there, Obliviating her daughter, making her husband lie about her for ten years? What happened in France? "Mum? Mum? I still have questions for you!"

There was no answer. She waited up until the fire died to embers, then trudged up the stairs to her dorm alone. That night, her sleep was fitful at best, but while sleeping, she found herself in the middle of a strange dream.

_She was along the Seine in the French countryside. It was pouring down rain and Rowena couldn't seem to keep warm enough. Her hair and clothes were drenched and the river she walked beside was beginning to flood. The grass was turning to mud and she felt like if she wasn't careful, she would end up in the river. She couldn't swim._

_Suddenly, Rhys was beside her and the rain began to slow. He held her hand and joked with her, back to being his normal self. She laughed at him and wondered if they were in a relationship. She was surprised at how the idea made her smile. But suddenly, the world around them became dark and her mother appeared ahead of them, seemingly born from the muddy river water, grown to a giant's size. The pouring rain came back when she did, sending chills into Rowena's bones. Looking at her mother, she wondered if she would ever be warm again._

_Morgana was much more than an apparition. She was pointing a wand at Rowena and shouting out threats of what would be coming her way. Rowena armed herself, firing curse after curse at her, but none of them were doing any damage. Rhys was trying as well, but per usual, most of his spells were backfiring._

_Rhys shoved his wand into her hand. "Use them both, Ro. You're better at practical magic than I am."_

"_Are you sure? You'll be unarmed."_

"_I trust you. Just try it!" Confused, Rowena pointed both wands at her mother. Before any spell was fired, Morgana cowered away, turning into a tidal wave that rushed not toward them, but back into the Seine._

And then she was awake. Rattled and nervous, reminding herself it was just a dream, she slowly fell back to sleep. The dream restarted again, and again she woke with a start, the dream ending at the same place. When it repeated the third time, she stayed asleep, but the dream had shifted to something else, and in the morning, it was the normal dream - one of picking flowers in a newly grown Forbidden forest - that she remembered.

Getting ready to go down for breakfast took her longer than normal - she was ill-rested and nervous about facing Rhys. She half-hoped he was still upset with her and not wanting to talk. Ignoring him if he was being his usual friendly self would be a difficult task. Unfortunately, he was waiting for her down in the Common Room, pacing back and forth by the fire. "Rowena! Glad to see you alive and well today! Ready for breakfast?"

"You're talking to me now?" she asked skeptically.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I just had some thoughts I needed to process. But, well, I got a lot of processing done last night while you were in the library, and I can't wait to tell you about it! Want to chat now, or are you hungry? Maybe we should get breakfast first."

"I'm sorry Rhys, not now. I just can't do this."

"Do what? Be friends? Forgive me? Keep searching for the wand?"

She sighed. Rowena wanted his company and help more than anything, but her mother's threats were clear and she knew without her saying that she wouldn't be allowed to explain herself. If her mother were to hurt him... Dumbledore. She didn't know what she would do. It was better to push him away now, get the whole thing over with, and then apologize later than to risk his life by keeping him involved. "Just forget it, okay? I need to be alone for awhile."

She shoved past him and went downstairs for breakfast. Rowena could hear him a few paces behind her, but he didn't try to catch up and she didn't let him. Instead of sitting at their usual spot, she found a place alone at the very end of the Gryffindor table, eating quickly and keeping her head down.

"Rowena?" She had been so focused on ignoring Rhys that she'd blocked everyone out and hadn't heard any footsteps approaching; she turned around to see Genevieve standing before her, looking concerned. "Did something happen between you and Rhys? Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine," Rowena said, turning back to her food. "I just need to be alone for awhile."

"Are you sure?" Genevieve sat down, her voice full of concern. "You don't look all right. Did something happen with your mother?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Even as she said the words, harmless as she thought they were, she could hear a whisper in her mind that sounded too much like her mother. _You've said too much, now. If you say another word to her..._ "Just go away, Gen. Leave me alone."

"Fine," she replied, but not sounding it. Rowena watched her leave, heading straight for Rhys. She sat down, engaging him. They talked in hushed whispers at first, close to each other, but soon they were talking and laughing, and even from 50 feet away, Rowena could see the smile in Rhys's eyes. She'd never seen him have a good time without her. She couldn't get up from the table fast enough.

Wanting nothing more than to be alone, Rowena refused to return to the Common Room. On a Sunday morning, it was sure to be crowded, especially when the rain still poured down outside. _The rain._ It was probably her only chance for solitude. Like always, she carried her satchel, so perhaps she would have a chance to get some work done.

For a moment, as she stepped outside into the downpour, she thought about using the Impervius Charm to protect herself from getting drenched, but she quickly changed her mind. It had been years since she cried at all - it was nice to let the sky cry for her. It almost felt like a purging of her own. She was alone, with a week left to find a Wand that had evaded people for more than a century. If she talked to the only friends she had, she - or they - would be in more danger than they already were. It was all she could do to hold on to the little hope she had as she arrived at a gnarled willow tree, probably more than a thousand years old, and parted its branches to the shelter it provided.

The ground was surprisingly dry - protected by the network of branches and leaves surrounding it - and Rowena felt safe there. Surely, even if someone did come outside in the rain to look for her, the drenched green leaves hanging to the ground made her virtually invisible; she had no need for her Cloak and she was glad for it - as wonderful as the quality seemed to be, she would hate to get it wet.

Instead, she conjured a simple blanket to sit on and began to rummage through her satchel for homework to complete. However, the first thing that caught her eye was the library book Genevieve had handed over late the night beforehand. Rowena shrugged, knowing she had nothing better to do all day, and pulled it out. Under the safety of the branches, she opened its cover and began to read.

It wasn't a book about the Elder Wand. It wasn't about Leila Weasley or the Potter family or Godric's Hollow or any of the other subjects that she'd studied in her mad hunt for clues. It was a book about Liam Finnegan, born about 130 years ago, a man who had done enough good to have it written down, but not so much that his name had survived in common history books over the years. She smiled as she became absorbed into the story of this young man and the work that he had done in Charms over the years. Halfway through, she was certain there was nothing of note that she would find in it, but it felt nice, almost a reminder of the days she would spend reading about Harry Potter. But near the end, it talked about his personal life, and how, in the year 2910, at the age of 32, he finally married one of his oldest friends and schoolmates - Leila Weasley.

Dumbledore's beard.

Was that what Rhys realized? What he was hiding? The wand must be with someone in his family - a great-uncle or whatnot. Rowena couldn't blame him for wanting to keep it all safe, but now - now she needed to talk to him. It didn't matter what her mother had said: which was more important after all? Leaving him out of it or finding the wand? She got up, stuffing the book back into her satchel and Vanishing the blanket. Still soaking wet, she ran across the grounds toward the castle doors, but as she approached, she realized Morgana was already standing there.

"What are you doing here?"

"Keeping you from doing anything stupid. You were about to go get Rhys, weren't you? Can't even manage a few hours on your own."

"I've done just fine on my own! I finally have a clue! I _have_ to go talk to Rhys. Mum, you don't understand, I have to!"

"I told you that he wasn't trustworthy! You can't go confiding every new piece of information in him. You're a Potter, Rowena. You can do this on your own!"

"I know, okay, but you have to let me go talk to him. Not as a friend... as a source. I think I know what he's been hiding - and it's important."

Morgana stood her ground and anger narrowed her once-kind eyes. The sky, dark with thunder clouds, lit up as lightning flashed in the distance. Rowena flinched. _It's a coincidence. She can't control the weather._ Thunder rumbled. She felt desperate to get inside, out of the storm, away from her mother. She drew her wand. "Let me talk to him! Let me inside or I'll -"

"Or you'll what?" Morgana smiled sinisterly. "I'm dead, remember? What good will your magic do against me?"

The answer, it turned out, was "Enough." A well-placed curse landed on Morgana's chest (how could she call that woman her mother after everything she had done?) and knocked her out of the way. Her body faded and disappeared, but Rowena knew it wouldn't be gone for long. She ran up the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower, slipping with shoes on wet stone floors as she made her way.

Breathless, she arrived in the Common Room, and began shivering from the cold now that she was in a room warm enough to remind her. She cast a drying spell on herself and sat down by the fire, where Rhys was present, looking pensive.

"Rhys? Can I talk to you a moment?"

He looked up, seeming surprised that she was there. "_Now_ you want to talk?"

"Yes, I do. I'm sorry for earlier... see my mother appeared to me again and said - she said I had a week left to find the Wand, and I had to do it without you and Genevieve. She doesn't trust you. Said you were hiding something."

He bit his lip and swallowed. "About that, Ro, I-"

"Not now, let me finish first, okay?"

"But I-"

"Just a second. I'm nearly done. Anyway, last night, Gen gave me one more book to read, and at first I wasn't sure why because it didn't seem related at all. See, it was about a man named Liam Finnegan." She paused, watching understanding and guilt appear on her best friend's face. "At first, I was just enjoying reading about his accomplishments, but then... then it listed his marriage."

"That's what I found at your house, by the way. Not your family tree, but mine. In an old newspaper in the living room, it listed my grandfather's obituary. So I read it, and it talked about his parents - Liam Finnegan and Leila Weasley. Ro, she's my great-grandmother. I didn't know what to think. That's why I wasn't talking to you."

She smiled reassuringly. "It's okay. I get it. Did you figure out what happened to the Wand from there? Is it with an uncle or something?"

"I'm not sure. I meant to write home about it, but haven't had a chance yet. What do I say, anyway? Just ask if there was a wand handed down through the generations? Oh no. Merlin. Dumbledore." Rhys's eyes opened wide and his breathing grew faster. He looked down and couldn't seem to meet her eyes.

"What is it?"

It took him a minute to steady his breathing and look up. "Did I ever tell you that my dad passed my wand down to me? Said it was an heirloom?"

Rowena felt like she could faint.


	7. Refraction

Everything was falling into place. Rhys's inability to do practical magic, his insistence that he was better at it when she wasn't around, the way his spells against her always seemed to affect him... Deciding to be friends with her was probably the worst decision Rhys ever made, at least in terms of his academics. His wand refused to behave around her, and the only class he took without her was Herbology - a wandless class. Rowena regretted every time she'd teased him about his level of magic skills, every time she said that blaming the wand was just an excuse.

But while Rhys felt relief at the explanation, and hope that he wasn't as useless at practical magic as he thought, Rowena felt despair. All three Deathly Hallows had been in their possession the whole time, although never in the same room at once. Now that she was presented with the opportunity, however, Rowena wasn't sure she wanted to become Master of Death. What if... what if it worked? What if Morgana came back to life? After the past week, Rowena wasn't sure what she would try to do, but she had a feeling that a relationship with her estranged daughter was the last thing on her mind.

The pair had sat there in silence since Rhys had said his wand was handed down to him, alternating between staring at each other and at the wand now set between them. Rowena had never really studied it before - its ornate details, the carving, the shaping of it. It was unique, certainly. If they had only had a description of it, it probably would have been obvious. But descriptions of the Elder Wand had varied. Anyone who said it was in their possession had simply described their own wand and called it the Death Stick. Now, however, there was no doubt left in her mind. What she had been looking for had been there all along.

It felt like hours since their revelation, though in reality it was probably closer to five or ten minutes. Finally, Rhys said, "Well? What now?"

Rowena pulled up her knees and rested her chin between them. "I'm not sure. I'm seventeen! I still have a year left of school. Master of Death? I'm not sure that's a load I want to carry. Especially... well, especially if it brings someone back to life."

Rhys leaned forward, awkwardly placing a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay. I mean, we don't even know for sure if we're right. Do you want to try it?"

She thought it over. The ring and cloak were safely upstairs, but she wanted to be certain. "Okay, but let's be clear: I am _borrowing_ your wand for a minute. It isn't mine. You aren't giving it to me."

It took a moment for him to understand what she was implying, but he did, and nodded. "Got it." When she sat there, holding it tentatively, he said, "Well, go on then. Give it a wave!"

She pointed it at a sweet sitting on the table. "_Engorgio_."

The sweet had been no bigger than a Galleon to start with, but it grew with surprising speed to the size of a watermelon. Setting down the wand for a moment, she reached forward to pick it up. Its newly acquired weight made it difficult, but she finally managed and held it out toward Rhys. "Want it?"

"I'm okay, thanks. It looked more appetizing when it was smaller."

"If you insist. _Reducio_." The candy compliantly reverted to its original size. Rowena had never had trouble with the wand that picked her when she was eleven, but there was something so simple and easy about this wand, like it was waiting to do her bidding. Then again, it probably was. Six years of partnering Rhys for different spells, while he used a wand that remained loyal to her. No wonder Rhys was rubbish at wandwork. "Hey, Rhys?"

"Yeah, Ro?"

"I just want to apologize for all those times when I teased you about your practical magic."

"No worries. But I told you it was my wand's fault, didn't I? Could've saved you a lot of yelling if you'd just listened to me over the years."

"Perhaps. But I don't think I would have believed you. I mean, seriously. If you'd come up to me at the end of first year and said, 'Ro, I'm rubbish with this wand, but that's because it's met you and is loyal to you, even though this is the first time you've ever been around it. If we just traded wands, I would be brilliant, honest.' Would you believe it?"

Rhys laughed, grinning at her in a way that made her blush. "Absolutely not. Not even I could come up with a story that crazy."

Rowena moved closer to him on the sofa. "Hey, speaking of which, do you want to try my wand?"

"Now?"

"Why not?" She placed the wand into his hands, but had to stop herself from reacting to his touch. They weren't particularly touchy friends, content to sit near each other and spar verbally. But the chemistry in their hands just then was undeniable. When the desire to pull away subsided, it was replaced by a desire to interlace their fingers, to sit there at the fireplace holding hands. Instead, she let go of her wand and looked at her friend expectantly.

Rhys took the wand, holding it tentatively. He waved it at the ceiling and muttered something Rowena couldn't quite make out, but the blush in his cheeks was undeniable. Rowena looked up to where he was pointing, and a green plant was forming out of the ceiling, berries descending from it. It was superb magic. "Wow, Rhys. Maybe you're brilliant after all," she said, still looking up. But her humorous tone changed as she studied the plant more. "Wait is that-" She turned to look at him.

"Mistletoe, yeah."

"But why-"

"Because it gives me an excuse to do this." He moved closer to her, reaching up to wrap a hand around her neck and pull her closer. Seventeen years old and Rowena had never been kissed. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do - open her eyes or close them? Pucker her lips or keep them natural? It was a distracting thought process, but she decided on lips natural, eyes closed, as Rhys ventured nearer. Their noses touched, gently, and on instinct she turned her head to the side. Their lips were very nearly touching when the portrait hole opened and noisy feet clambered through.

Stunned by the noise, Rhys and Rowena pulled apart and looked up to see who was coming in. A haggled-looking second-year was there, and Genevieve was right behind her. "Gen? What are you doing here?"

She swallowed, looking more embarrassed than Rowena had ever seen her. "Well, it's just, I was going out to the Great Hall and when I got to the entrance, I found the second-year and she was in trouble and there was this ghost-like figure that was torturing her somehow, and well... I think it was your mother."

"Shit. What are we going to do?"

Rhys looked up at her. "I think the first thing we should do is catch Genevieve up on what we've figured out."

"Oh. Right. Gen? Thank you so much for that book you shoved into my hands yesterday."

Gen blinked intently a few times, seeming unsure of what to say. "You're welcome I guess. Why?"

"We found the Elder Wand. Well, technically we didn't _find_ it. See, it's sort of been here all along." Rowena awkwardly held up Rhys's wand.

"Isn't that-"

"My wand? Yeah, it was. Turns out there was a reason I was rubbish at practical magic. My wand was mad at me for hanging out so close to its technical owner."

"_You_ had the Elder Wand this whole time? Wow, I mean if there was one thing I wasn't expecting-"

"Seriously," Rowena said. "But now I'm not so sure I _want_ to unite the Hallows. You just saw my mother. Does she seem like the kind of person you want to bring back from the dead?"

Genevieve paused, looking overly serious. "No. Absolutely not."

As she came to join them on the couch in the Common Room, Rowena was distracted by the second year girl who had let Genevieve in. She turned to her and shouted, "Hey!" The girl looked up, frightened. "What's your name?"

"Emily," she said, barely loud enough to be heard.

"Come here, Emily. Can you tell me what happened?" She crept over, light on her feet like she was ready to jump at anything. Slight, perhaps still not yet at puberty, her mousy brown hair covered her face as she walked, head down, staring at her feet.

"All I wanted to do was meet Anthony for dinner."

"I believe you. I won't hurt you."

"But that thing- the scary woman in the dress? You said - you said she was your mother."

Rowena sighed. No wonder the girl had been frightened. "Yes, but she and I are nothing alike. I am trying to stop her. But in order to stop her, I need to know what she's capable of doing."

Emily sighed, looking her up and down like she was still figuring out how much to trust her. Evidently, she decided in Rowena's favor because she took a deep breath and began to speak. "Well I made it to the Entrance Hall and I went to look outside. The noise of the downpour distracted me, and I was hoping for a thunderstorm. I love watching thunderstorms. But instead I saw that lady - she didn't seem quite like a ghost, more real than anything else, but there was something strange about her, something off that I didn't quite understand. Though she seemed solid, she drifted through the doors and stared at me.

"It was weird, because she'd been standing outside in the storm, but she wasn't wet at all. I couldn't tell if she was a ghost or something different. I was frightened and I think she could tell. She asked me what I was doing all alone, and I told her I was meeting Anthony - he's a Hufflepuff, see - but she said I should know better than to be alone in a school where such scary things had taken place.

"I didn't know what she meant, so I asked her what she was talking about, what kind of scary things. But she went off about the legends of Harry Potter. Three-headed dogs in the third-floor corridor, a Basilisk in a secret room, teachers being impersonated by Azkaban prisoners, teachers who abused students. It was like she really believed them. I told her they were codswallop - my mum always told me to never believe those crazy stories, said to keep my head on straight. She was a Ravenclaw of course. Anyway, I told her they were just stories and she completely went berserk on me." She paused and shuddered, seeming like the next part was too much to talk about. Looking at Genevieve, she said, "This is about the part when you showed up. Could you please take over?"

Genevieve swallowed and sent an apologetic look to Rowena before even starting. "It was bad, Ro. I didn't realize the kinds of things ghosts or whatever she is could do. She was doing everything a live witch could, and a few things they can't, like going through walls and such. And... it might just have been my perspective, but it seemed like the weather was sort of synchronized to her. Emily suffered the Cruciatus curse, though. Multiple times. I got there in time to fight her off before anything worse happened to her, but it seemed like she was going to kill her, Rowena. I'm sorry."

Emily had gone sheet white in hearing Genevieve's recount and Rowena turned to her first. "I am so sorry this had to have happened. Are you still hungry? Do you want me to bring you some dinner?"

She shook her head. "I kind of lost my appetite."

"Me, too. And I only heard it. Rhys, do you think there's a plant or a potion that could make her feel better?"

He studied the young girl carefully and said, "Honestly, I think the best thing for her is some chocolate. I have some in my room; I'll be right back."

In his absence, Rowena turned to Genevieve. "So I was thinking this even before Emily was attacked, but now it's required. I think we need a new plan. What all do you know about the Hallows and how they might work?"

"Less than you do, I'm sure," Genevieve said. "I found them mildly interesting, of course, like anyone who reads _Beedle the Bard_ does, but I never really researched them until I found out what was going on with you."

"Likewise, really. Although my dad read the stories to me a lot growing up. What I'm most curious about is whether the Elder Wand would be enough to beat her. It seems she has somehow grown stronger, more... human isn't the right word. Real, maybe? Anyway, I'm scared what will happen if we just let her be. I wonder if being Master of Death wouldn't give me the opportunity to destroy her rather than bring her back."

"What were you saying?" Rhys said as he came back downstairs with a bar of chocolate. "Something about using the wand to destroy Morgana?" He gave the chocolate to Emily, patting her shoulder, before settling comfortably into an armchair.

"Yeah. I know Morgana said that being Master of Death lets you bring one person back from the dead, but I'm not sure she was telling the truth. What if, instead, it gives me the ability to destroy her? From what I can tell, she is coming back to the world some without my help. Getting more solid. I think we need a change of plan."

"But how can we attack her? It seems she appears randomly, right?"

"I have only summoned her with the Resurrection Stone one time - I bet you if I turn it over again she will have to come to where I am."

The four of them sat in silence for a moment, Emily heartily eating the chocolate bar, the others mulling over the change in events. Finally, Genevieve spoke. "I think you're right. Doing that is probably your only chance to get her where you need her. But you should wait until you're ready, until we have a plan and the three of us are together. It should be easier to take her down that way, three against one."

Rowena nodded. "Okay, let's keep thinking tomorrow. For now, I would love to be able to do something else. Maybe get some studying done?"

A few hours later, the Common Room had cleared out; only Rhys and Rowena were still awake and working. After the chocolate, Emily's color was returning to her skin, and she excused herself for bed the moment it seemed reasonable. Rowena was able to get some homework done, but she remained distracted by the prospect of what lay in front of her. In some ways, her new task made her more apprehensive than the original. The moment beneath Rhys's conjured mistletoe stayed in the back of Rowena's mind the whole time, but Rhys didn't bring it up and she wasn't keen to, either. Someday when something less exciting was happening around them, she had feelings she needed to sort out. But for now, they could wait.

Closing her book for Ancient Runes, she said, "I think this is about all I can take for the night. See you in the morning?"

"Sure thing, Ro. I think I'm going to work for a little while more. Haven't had much of a chance to do homework lately, after all." He gave her a weak smile.

"Okay. Work hard. Sleep well." She went upstairs to her room, changed into a long white nightgown, and crawled into bed. The last few weeks had been absolutely exhausting to her, and she hadn't managed a decent night's sleep since the night her mother first appeared. This night was, at first, no different. She ran back through Emily's story of what had happened to her, remembering that it was claiming Harry Potter was a myth that set her mother on Emily to begin with.

Why was it so important to her that Harry had actually lived? Surely, Rowena believed it herself, but it seemed inconsequential. It had been a thousand years. The stories about Harry's school years were great lessons to learn from - stories that taught important values. Those were the things her own father emphasized when reading from _Beedle_ to her. Apparently, for her mother, it was a topic that took her out of her mind. Rowena mulled over different possibilities for why that could be, until she settled on one she deemed most likely.

Morgana never loved her father. She must have married him for his black hair and Invisibility Cloak, for thinking she could somehow be a part of the legend. But even then, Rowena couldn't wrap her mind around it. Had Morgana really built her life so thoroughly on the legend, stories, history - whatever - of Harry Potter to the point where a child not believing her would cause her to go mad? There must be something else to it.

But Rowena never got to what that something else could be before she fell asleep.

"Wake up, Rowena." The voice was curt and no-nonsense, pulling her quickly out of her dreams. Morgana was there, keeping quiet enough that the other people in her room couldn't hear her, but she found herself sitting up and looking into her mother's eyes, obediently pulling back the covers. "Follow me. Bring the stone."

Rowena was in a trance, unaware of what she was doing, she grabbed both the stone and the Invisibility Cloak from the trunk at the end of her bed, then pattered after Morgana, unblinking. Her clumsy steps into the Common Room woke up Rhys, who had fallen asleep at the table b the fire. "Ro! What are you doing, Ro?"

"Be quiet, you insolent boy," Morgana said, while Rowena stared forward, seeming to pay him no attention. But an object fell from her arms, and Morgana didn't seem to notice.

"What did you do to her?"

"That is none of your business." She turned and soon the pair had left the room.

Rhys ran over to where the object had fallen and picked it up. Relieved, he wrapped Rowena's Cloak around his shoulders and went out into the hallway to follow them. It almost seemed like Rowena had dropped it on purpose, but that couldn't be. She was very clearly hypnotized - or worse, under the Imperio curse.

He followed as silently as he could, wand at the ready, as the ghost-like figures made their way through the school and out onto the grounds. The storm was over, but the ground was still soggy beneath his feet, and he knew his footsteps were probably going to be visible. He did his best to step in Rowena's wake, not letting down his guard or his pace until they were deep into the forest and Morgana had stopped.

"Rowena, wake up."

Her eyes closed momentarily, then opened wide and a look of shock spread across her face. "How did I get here?"


	8. Revolution

Rowena looked around, aware of what she was doing for the first time since falling asleep what must have been hours earlier. She stood deep in the Forbidden Forest, in a place that hadn't been touched by the fire she'd accidentally set only a week prior. The trunks were thick and gnarled, like everywhere else in the Forest, but the trees were sparse enough that she could see above their canopy to the night sky. The storm that had lasted all weekend had passed, and in its place was a clear sky with bright stars and a shining moon that lit up all that was around her - including her mother, who stood less than five feet in front of her.

"Where am I?" she repeated. "How did I get here?"

Morgana smiled. "You've done a wonderful job with your assignment, Rowena. It was wrong of me to leave the boy out. I see that now - you found the Elder Wand. You accomplished in just over a week what I spent a lifetime trying to do. A shame, though, that my lifetime was so short. It's time for you to change that, Rowie. Bring your mother back. Become Master of Death."

Rowena looked around, shivering a little in her nightgown, trying to see if she held everything, if her mother had her bring the Hallows with her in her daze, but she only had the Resurrection Stone in her hand. "Don't I need all of the Hallows in my possession to do that, though? And you've only had me bring out the one!" Rowena tried not to let the hope in her voice show through too much, adding a small hint of feigned exasperation.

Morgana's smile shifted into something sinister. "No, I didn't bring the others out. I didn't have to. I saw that scum of a new boyfriend of yours in the Common Room, and he did exactly what I expected him to." A gust of wind blew past Rowena and she held her nightgown close, turning to follow Morgana's gaze. Standing about fifteen feet from her, slightly out of the way, were Rhys's legs, one of which was coming in and out of visibility as her Cloak fluttered in the breeze that Morgana must have created.

Rowena hastened toward him, wincing some as she stepped over the uneven ground in her bare feet. "Rhys! What are you doing out here? Why did you come?"

"What choice did I have?" he asked, throwing the Cloak the rest of the way off, but keeping it in his hands. "You clunked down the stairs and didn't seem to know what you were doing. I couldn't let her take you! I didn't know what she might do to you!"

"You shouldn't have come. You should've gotten Professor Malfoy or someone, not gone after me alone."

"Quit small talking, Rowie. Take the Cloak. Find his wand. It is time, Rowie. You need to do as I say." Morgana's voice was impatient and irritated, each of her sentences staccato, as she twitched slightly in her ghostly skin.

Rowena's heart pounded inside her, beating hard and fast, making her shake as she turned to stare down her mother. She gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. With resolve, she turned slowly, trying to hide the shaking in her arm as she faced her best friend, wand out menacingly. Rowena took a few deep breaths, steadying her voice the best she could. "Rhys, you need to give me the Hallows."

"No! You are still under her control! You must be! Rowena, it's _me._ Think of what you're doing. I can't give them to you." Rhys, who never could stand still for very long, was pacing back and forth as he spoke, going a few steps in each direction and turning on his heel, but never taking his eyes off of Rowena. After a few paces, he stopped and faced her directly once again. The exasperation left his voice and was replaced with resolve. "You will have to take them from me if you want them."

Walking slowly, wand constantly aimed at his chest, she made her way toward him and said, "Rhys. Please. Give me the Hallows - or I will take them from you. I won't be able to do what I need to do without them."

"No." He stood his ground, ignoring their six-inch height difference and looking up at her unmoving.

"If you insist," she nearly whispered, then her voice came back in a shout as she cast her spells. "_Expelliarmus. Accio Cloak."_ The Elder Wand and Cloak came flying toward her and she caught them easily.

"That's a girl, Rowie. Family is so much more important than your friendship with this lowlife. I'm so proud of you."

"Yes, absolutely, family first," she said absently, as if her mind was elsewhere. Tucking the Cloak and her wand in the crook of one arm, she turned sideways, facing neither Rhys nor Morgana, and tossed the Stone into the trees.

"Rowena, what are you doing?"

She faced Morgana again, leaving the Stone where it landed a few feet away. "Mastering Death, mother. My way. Do you know the spell I would need to bring someone back from the dead?"

"You need a spell?"

"I was just holding the three Hallows, wasn't I, having won the Wand back from Rhys. Did you think it would just work? That the moment I was holding them you would suddenly find your heart beating again?"

"Of course not! There is only one proper way to win the Elder Wand, though, darling."

"What do you mean?"

"You have to kill him, Rowie. The wand isn't really yours until its last owner is dead."

"That's not true. I've used this wand already, and I'm brilliant at magic with it. It's loyal to me _now_, with Rhys standing over there breathing just fine. I won't hurt him. But if you didn't take the time to figure out how to bring someone back to life, even though you said that was what you wanted most, I think I'm going to deal with the Hallows in my own way."

"Rowena, what are you doing?! Be careful!" Several things happened at once - Rhys started running toward her; Morgana sent the earth moving beneath their feet; and Rowena slipped under the cover of her Invisibility Cloak and picked up the Stone she threw, moving steadily through the forest and away from both Rhys and Morgana. Hiding behind a tree, she realized she'd left Rhys alone and unarmed against a woman whose magic went far beyond what she should be capable of as a dead woman.

Rhys was moving her direction, but Morgana was close behind and unaffected by the gusts of wind now blowing around them. Clouds rolled in to what had been a cloudless sky, thunder and lightning striking nearby ominously. "Rhys," Rowena hissed as he drew near, "Take my wand. Fight back." She slipped her wand out of the Cloak and he jumped, but accepted the wand, taking it from her like a relay, barely even pausing to nod his thanks.

When he was a safe distance away from Rowena, he turned to Morgana and began to taunt her. "If you want me dead so much, why don't you just do it yourself? I'm right here."

"If you insist, boy," she said, moving closer to him. "It won't be much of a loss to the world with you dead, you useless pig."

That was all Rowena could stand to hear. "No! You will not insult my friend!" She had been waiting for the perfect moment, and hoped for one when Morgana wasn't paying attention, but this one would do. She tossed the Stone away from Rhys and Morgana, who were slowly circling about 50 feet to her left; the moment it hit the ground, she raised the Elder Wand. "_Confrigo!"_ She didn't stay long enough to watch the explosion, the Stone shattering and taking bits and pieces of the already-charred forest; instead she ran, Cloak trailing out behind her as she reached Rhys's side.

But Morgana was still there, apparently unaffected by the destruction of the object Rowena supposed was tethering her to earth. Looking at her now, only a few paces away, Rowena studied her for the first time since Morgana had walked into the room after turning the Stone for the first time. When she first saw her mother, she was ghostly, unsubstantial, not making an indent when she sat down on the bed beside her. Now, she seemed almost... real. Almost human again. Even with the Stone destroyed behind them, Morgana seemed to leave footprints in the ground soft from weeks of rain. Wand out, still ready to duel, Rowena said, "You're still here. You should be gone. But you look more real than you ever have."

"You just tried to destroy your own mother, Rowie. That can't reflect well on you in the long run, child. But you silly girl, do you think I was relying solely on the hope that my teenage daughter would find a long-lost stone in order to bring me back to life? No, child, I have other plans in place, ones that I started working on while I was still alive. And, no thanks to you, one of them is still working perfectly. I did hope to get to spend time with my only daughter, to get to know you and see what you could do to bring me back. I thought we could be partners. But as you seem to no longer have an interest in having your mother around..."

She let her voice trail off just as a fissure developed between Rowena and Rhys, a deep chasm that grew with each millisecond that passed. Shit. Shit. Shit. Rowena had been trying to play down the strange forces of nature to coincidence, but now it was too much to deny: she had found some way to control nature. The ground shook and the great ancient trees of the Forbidden Forest began to collapse around them, each one turning inwards in its collapse, each one narrowly missing Rhys or Rowena as they ran back toward the grounds of Hogwarts again, the chasm between them keeping them from connecting. Rowena sneaked a glance backwards to see Morgana in the midst of it all, the ground near her steady, the earthquake radiating outward from her at its epicenter. There was a slight smile on her face, but it just made her appear colder.

In her glance back at her mother, Rowena lost her concentration on the shaking ground around her and fell, a tree seeming to move precisely into her way. She stumbled, but was up again soon, Rhys calling out across from her. "Are you okay?"

She saw him standing at the edge of the chasm, completely stopped, and a surge of annoyance ran through her. "Watch out for yourself, Rhys! Pay attention!" She scrambled to her feet and kept running, her white nightgown clinging to her front and trailing out behind her as she sped along barefoot. "We're nearly out of the forest! We can make it!"

They moved towards one another, finding a place where the fissure between them was jumpable. "Rowena, what are you doing? Let me come to you!" Rhys said and Rowena prepared to jump it.

"No! You're closer to the school; you're on the right side of it. It has to be me." She tried to sound far more confident than she was. Though the crack in the earth was only about two or three feet here, it seemed to go on and on below the surface, and Rowena knew she could easily fall inside. She tried not to look down. A running start was difficult as the ground shook beneath her, so she bent her knees and jumped, looking straight into Rhys's eyes rather than down at what she was jumping over. She was in the air, then in a moment one foot was on the ground; the second followed, just on the edge of the chasm, but Rhys was ready and his arms held her close.

"You're safe."

"No," she said, looking down at him. "We're together, but we're not safe. She's coming."

"What are you talking-" he followed her gaze. "Oh damn it. Dumbledore. Damn it all on Dumbledore's beard. What now?"

Rowena had no idea what next. It seemed obvious they couldn't fight her; their magic did little to harm her, but her own magic was very, very real. Rowena looked past Rhys, and in the distance she spotted a moving figure. It was still very dark, but there was something familiar about the shape. She took Rhys's hand. "Come on, this way. Run for it!"

"What are we going towards?" He asked, huffing from the effort it took to sprint and speak.

"Just trust me!" Having made the mistake once, Rowena didn't dare look back again. But she was beginning to hear Morgana's shouts, and the noise propelled her onward. As they got closer to the figure she'd seen, Rowena felt some of the tension leave her body. It was exactly what she expected to find. "We're almost there!"

"To where? I just see more forest; we're not even going toward the grounds!"

"I know. You're just going to have to trust me," she said as she slowed them to a walk and approached the animal. Cautiously, still not thrilled to be around a creature with the potential to bite her, she stood in front of it, face to face, and placed her hand over its skeletal muzzle. "Okay, Rhys, come here," she said, moving to its side. "Now reach out your hand."

He obliged, and startled when he felt the soft leathery texture in front of him. As his hand touched the animal's hide, understanding dawned in his eyes. "But how did you see it? How did you know it was here?"

"I have no idea, Rhys. Sorry."

"Seeing Thestrals is a new power of yours?"

"Something like that. I don't get it. But I think he'll let us ride him. Come on then, get on."

"You first, if you can see what you're doing." Rowena nodded and climbed on, then reached out a hand to help Rhys up. As the taller of the two, she sat in the back and wrapped her arms around him. But before the Thestral could open his wingspan, there was a jolt in the ground beneath them, and Rowena turned to where they had just been. Morgana was mere feet away, smiling sinisterly.

"Have a new affinity to Thestrals do you, Rowie? Can't stand a Kneazle, but get on with these beasts? You always were a strange child."

"Why are you trying to hurt us? Can't you just go on your way and deal with whatever it is that's making you alive?"

"You tried to do away with me, Rowena. I am merely returning the favor," she said. The ground shook violently, but Morgana stood against it without issue. The Thestral reared up in fright, dropping its riders in the process, and both Rowena and Rhys hit the ground, a tangle of bodies and limbs. Rowena had landed against a broad flat rock, head first, and blood slowly pooled beside her. Rhys landed on top of her, his head against hers, and neither of them, though breathing, woke up.


	9. Repulsion

Slowly, Rowena found herself regaining consciousness, becoming aware first that she existed, and second that she was on something solid. Upon further consideration, that something solid felt crisp, cool, and comfortable; she soon formed the concept that it was a bed. The moment she was aware of her eyelids, she tried to open them, but the effort was too much. She had better luck with her vocal chords, which created some sort of incomprehensible sound.

"Ro?" came a weak voice to her left. At least her ears seemed to be working. She tried her eyes again, and found them much more up to the task than they had been moments before. They opened, but she was nearly blinded by the bright whiteness of the room she assumed was the hospital wing.

Several strong blinks later, she seemed to have adjusted to the light, and tried rolling onto her side. In the bed next to hers lay Rhys, looking far worse for the wear than she'd ever seen him. His reddish brown hair was matted to his head with streaks of blood; a cut on his upper lip had it swollen to more than twice its size, and a gash on his cheek was purplish. "Rhys? You okay? What happened?" Her voice was raspy, and the noise tickled her throat.

"I can't remember," he said, his words foggy from behind his swollen lip.

Just then, the nurse came over and stood between their beds. "Are you two doing better?" she asked. "I thought sleep would be the best thing for you, but now you're awake, let me take care of some of your injuries. I have some essence of murtlap here that should help with most of your surface wounds."

As she treated them, there was a knock at the outer door, but it opened before the matron had a chance to answer. "Can I come in now?" Genevieve asked, once she was well inside the room. "I could hear you talking."

"Well, since you're already here... Do you two mind having a visitor?"

"I think it will be good for us," Rowena said, trying to smile, but found those muscles painful to move. She did her best to hide her reaction to the pain; she had a feeling she had something very important to tell Genevieve, though she couldn't quite remember what it was.

Genevieve sat down by Rowena's bed and chatted with her, but the effort to stay awake and focused was too much and Rowena found herself slipping in and out of consciousness. When she was awake, she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to be saying something to Genevieve, but whatever that something was couldn't make its way to her tongue. When she was asleep, she dreamt of shattering stones, curses, and time spent with her father reading from _Beedle the Bard_ as a child. Genevieve must have given up on her bedside vigil at some point, because when Rowena finally woke up fully conscious, it was dark outside and she and Rhys were alone.

As the evening progressed, memories of what had last happened began to trickle into her mind. She remembered being in the Forest, something about a Thestral, something about her mother... Then, in one moment, the trickle became a flood. She remembered snapping out of hypnosis or the Imperius curse, shivering in her nightgown in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. She remembered Rhys there under her Invisibility Cloak, and the fight that followed to destroy the Resurrection Stone.

She remembered succeeding.

Then she remembered that her mother still existed, still fought them, even after the Stone shattered.

The thought sent a chill down her spine even from the safety of the hospital wing. Morgana had mentioned something the night before, something about the Stone not being her only safety net. Rowena had no idea what she could possibly have meant, but the idea of it was repulsing. She couldn't understand her mother's thought process. From what she had gathered, Morgana was enthralled with the tale of Harry Potter, and wanted as much to do with it as possible. Why, then, did she seem to treat living as a final reward, almost like Voldemort had? Mythical or real, he seemed like the wrong example to follow.

If growing up with her mother would have meant being indoctrinated into whatever it was Morgana believed, Rowena was glad it was just her father with her growing up. He never emphasized their last name or their heritage, didn't try to convince her that Harry was real - or a myth. He let Rowena form her own opinions about her family tree and the history of the wizarding world. With Morgana around... Rowena remembered what she had seen in the Pensieve and shuddered.

The next few days passed in a blur of waking and sleeping. Rowena felt herself getting stronger with every dose of disgusting potion she swallowed, and Rhys seemed to be doing better as well. Under the close supervision of the matron, their discussions about the Forest were all but non-existent, but Rowena didn't mind. She appreciated the time to process things alone. When Genevieve came in on a day she said was Friday, the matron was finally ready to let them go. As they packed their things and headed off, Rowena was more worried about having missed an entire week of school than she was about what happened in the Forest.

"Genevieve, what happened in Care of Magical Creatures this week? Did we miss anything important?" she asked as the three of them walked to the Entrance Hall together.

"Well, we were studying the properties of unicorn blood in a classroom. Professor Finney kept us out of the Forest, said it became a dangerous place. I'm guessing that has something to do with you two? I asked him about it after class and all he said... he said he found the two of you unconscious at the edge of the Forest and that he took you straightaway to the hospital wing." Genevieve sounded as though there was a lump in her throat as she relayed this information. She paused, swallowed, and continued. "Is that true?"

"Well, I'm not sure who found us, but that sounds right," Rowena said simply. Based on her reaction to Professor Finney's story, she wasn't sure Genevieve would want to hear the details.

However, as usual, Rhys decided it was prudent to tell the whole story. "That's only the ending, Gen! You have no idea... it was so crazy. Sunday evening I was in the Common Room and I fell asleep there. I woke up when I heard these strange footsteps - it was Rowena, but she looked strange, like she was under the Imperius curse or something, or hypnotized. I put on the Invisibility Cloak and followed her, and Morgana was there and-"

"Rhys Finnegan. She doesn't need a play-by-play, okay?" Rowena rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "We got down there, and she wanted me to unite the Hallows and bring her back to life. Except she didn't seem to know what the incantation was for doing it, which I found strange. Anyway, I had no intention of bringing her back to life at this point, and instead Rhys diverted her and I destroyed the Resurrection Stone."

"So... she's gone?" Genevieve asked hopefully as they pushed open the large doors of the Entrance Hall and stepped out toward the grounds and into the sunshine.

"She should have been. But she wasn't. She was almost... almost substantial. I swore she left footprints in the mud. I don't remember exactly how it all happened - we blacked out at the end, I think - but she said something about how the Stone wasn't her only plan for returning to life and she wouldn't entrust it all to her daughter. She said something else was in place that was tethering her to earth."

Genevieve conjured chairs for them as they reached the muddy shores of the lake and they sat down, facing each other. "What do you think is keeping her here?"

"I have no idea. Once I remembered what had happened, I spent much of my time in the hospital wing trying to think of what it could be."

"Me, too," Rhys said. "Maybe she's a ghost?"

"No," Genevieve said thoughtfully. "Ghosts don't interact with earth, and it seems like Morgana can do that now. What if she never really died and was just pretending?"

"She's too _in_substantial for that to be the case. She appears and disappears and until last night, it didn't seem like the elements were interacting with her. The only thing I can think of," Rowena continued, "is that the Stone didn't shatter enough for its powers to be destroyed. I mean, it was already split when I got it. What if the shattering just multiplied her powers and kept her here?"

"That sounds possible. But how would we go about dealing with that? We could try finding all the pieces in the Forest. Could we put it back together maybe?"

"No, Rhys. I used the Confringo spell - it shattered into hundreds of pieces, if not more. I doubt we could find them all. And even then, what would we do with them when we found them?"

"I don't know. But I still think it wouldn't hurt to have them," Rhys said defensively.

Genevieve said, "I agree with you, but I don't think that's an option. Remember what I was telling you about Care of Magical Creatures? The Forest isn't even being used for classes right now - anyone caught within fifty feet of it is getting a month's worth of detentions with Professor Finney."

There was a brief pause between the three of them, but then Rhys exclaimed, "That's okay! We have Ro's Cloak! We could just go out and get the pieces under it."

"I guess that would work," Genevieve said, "But it would still be dangerous. You two have gotten into a lot of trouble in the Forest recently."

Rowena sighed. "It won't work."

"What are you talking about? That Cloak is perfect."

"Yes, of course it is! But I also don't know where it is. I am sure I had it when we got onto the Thestrals, but I haven't seen it since. I looked everywhere in my satchel once I was able to move around a bit in the hospital wing. I think it's been confiscated."

"Well shit, Rowena, what are we going to do now?" Rhys was standing now, pacing back and forth in front of his chair and creating a track in the mud. "That was our only chance for getting the Stone back. What if that's what is making her stronger? You know once she realizes we're fine she'll probably come back for us. She wasn't thrilled at all that you tried to kill her - I'm sure she'll want revenge. We don't even know how to fight her and our only option was to go into the Forest, but you go and lose your bloody Cloak!"

"Rhys, calm down!" Rowena stood as well, looking down on him as she felt her cheeks beginning to flush with anger. "I was unconscious! What was I supposed to do, grip it in my bloody sleep? And I don't know about you, but I was disoriented for days in the hospital - I didn't even remember why I was there, let alone that I had a Cloak to protect!"

"Well you should have! We wouldn't even be in this mess if it weren't for you!" He was gasping for air. When he spoke again, it was closer to pouting than screaming. "And you should protect your Cloak."

"You two need to stop fighting!" Genevieve said, standing up to push them apart, though she was shorter than both Rhys and Rowena. "It won't solve anything. The Cloak is gone. Arguing about it won't do anything, and I'm guessing Headmaster Malfoy wouldn't give it back if we did ask for it. We're just going to have to find another way."

Rowena sighed. "You're right. Gen, did you say you knew the homework for Care of Magical Creatures and Charms? Could you write it down for me? I'm going to go back to the Common Room for a bit before dinner. I feel like I have a lot of catch-up work to do to stay on top of things. Let's just forget about Morgana for now."

Genevieve pulled a quill and parchment out of her bag and began to write, while Rhys said, "I'll go back there, too. It would be nice to get some work done before dinner."

The trio trudged back toward the Entrance Hall, makeshift chairs Vanished behind them by Genevieve's spellwork. They were silent, each lost in their own thoughts as they made their way back inside. "Well, goodbye then," Genevieve said airily when they reached the staircase that led to Ravenclaw tower.

Rowena and Rhys continued on without speaking for the last few minutes before reaching the Fat Lady. However, once they were inside, Rhys turned to Rowena before she could escape up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. "Ro, we need to talk."

"If this is about the Cloak-"

"It's not, but I _am_ sorry for blowing up at you. It's just that I really want her gone, you know? I think life was better before Morgana was in it."

Rowena snorted. "And you think I don't?! I can't wait to get out of this mess. I wish I had the Cloak, too, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Can we sit down a minute?" he asked, gesturing to the couch by the fire they had sat on six days before, just hours before Rowena was led into the Forest.

She sat down beside him, curling one leg beneath her as she turned to face him. "What is it?"

"When we were recovering in the hospital wing, I wasn't just trying to remember what happened in the Forest, and what to do about it. I was also thinking about Sunday night, before you were Imperiused, before Genevieve came for us."

Rowena tried to roll her mind back over those events. It was less than a week ago, but anything that happened before their stay in hospital felt like a lifetime ago. The image was foggy, but she remembered sitting in the Common Room - she had just realized that Rhys had the wand, and they traded and... "Oh. You mean, the... the mistletoe?"

He was talking fast again, words spilling out and overlapping. "Yeah, I'm so sorry about that. There probably was a better way I could have told you - and it, well, I know that there was just so much going on, but we figured out the whole Hallows thing and it made sense at the-"

"Rhys, stop, okay? I wasn't offended. Don't worry about it. In case you didn't notice, I was planning to kiss you back."

"Well, it's mistletoe. Not like you had much of a choice."

"Maybe not. But I still didn't mind. And even if you had without mistletoe- never mind for now. Let's just figure out what's going on with Morgana first. We can talk about a -, or-, well, you know - after all this is settled, okay?"

Rhys exhaled deeply, like he had been holding his breath while she spoke. "Okay. Shall we go to dinner then?"

"Sounds good to me. I could do with an extra helping of chocolate for dessert."

They ate with relative peace between them, filling up on their choice of food for the first time in nearly a week. But as the puddings appeared on the table and Rowena helped herself to an extra-large chunk of dark chocolate, a lone owl flew through the window and landed in front of her. "What are you doing getting mail at dinner?"

"How should I know?" Rowena answered as she untied the parchment from the owl's leg. She recognized her father's handwriting immediately.

_Rowena,_

_Headmaster Malfoy wrote me earlier this week to let me know that you were found unconscious at the edge of the Forbidden Forest with Mr. Finnegan. He wrote again this morning to let me know you are feeling better and gave me express permission to take you home for the weekend where you will be out of trouble._

_I have reason to believe you visited recently, and I assume this visit was without teacher permission or knowledge. I must admit I am surprised at your recent behavior, as it is nothing like you used to be. Your recklessness must stop, and I'm sure you understand why._

_When you're home this weekend, I hope to spend time with you like we used to do before you went to Hogwarts. Read _Beedle the Bard, _look through old family albums, remind you why it is so imperative that your family comes first. I love you, despite your behavior over the past month, and I can't wait to see you. I will pick you up at Hogsmeade Station on Saturday at 8 in the morning. Please be there and be ready. I understand that you will have a professor for a guard as you go._

_Aquila_

"What's that about?" Rhys asked when he reached the bottom of the parchment.

"I have no idea. It doesn't really even sound like him - taking me out of school because of recklessness or whatnot. He was far worse; I haven't forgotten all his stories about the Cloak." She folded the note and placed it in the pocket of her khakis, trying to make sense of the whole thing. Though she was close with him, he'd never explicitly asked her to spend time with him, and she didn't see how his suggestions - remarkably detailed, considering he said he just wanted her home - would constitute a punishment for her behavior.

"Could it be - is it maybe another trick of Morgana's?"

"I doubt it - it's definitely his handwriting, at least. I'm not sure how she would forge that. But the language... it's too formal for how he usually writes me."

"Well, are you going to go?"

"What choice do I have? It looks like someone is going to meet me and escort me there. I don't know how I can get out of it. And obviously he'd find out soon enough that I didn't make it. I think I have to go."

"Let me go with you," Rhys said, his voice serious and his eyes narrowed.

"I can't, Rhys. How can I explain to him why you're there? Especially since his letter implied that you are getting me into trouble." She laughed. "Seems more to be the other way around, doesn't it?"

A note from Headmaster Malfoy that evening verified that she had permission to leave. She sighed and packed her trunk, stuffing things in haphazardly. She levitated her trunk into the Common Room, where Rhys was waiting for her. "Which wand should I take with me?"

"Huh? Oh, the wand? Take mine. Without your Cloak or anything... I just think it would be a good idea."

Rowena smiled and sat beside him, holding out her own wand. "Trade?"

They switched wands, then sat in silence for a few moments, both studying the dying embers of the fire. "Hey, Ro?"

"Yeah, Rhys?"

"Keep safe, okay? And write me if something happens."

"I will. Hopefully it's just like his letter says, and I'll just be sitting there in an armchair reading fairy tales with him."

Rhys laughed and reached out to squeeze her hand gently. "Let's hope so. There's nothing harmful in readingfairy tales," he said lightly.

Rowena's laugh was dark. "Yeah, it's just believing in them we have to look out for."

That night, Rowena's sleep was fitful; she tossed and turned, images blurring together in the state between wake and sleep of her mother, her father, Kneazles, Hallows, and what it meant to be going home.


	10. Requiem

**A/N: This chapter contains the full text of the fairy tale Rowena grew up reading from Beedle the Bard, a story about Harry written at a much later date. Harry Potter's story as we know it is more than a million words long, supplemented by Pottermore and other sources. The fairy tale is less than a thousand words. I wrote it in the fashion of traditional fairy tales and there are many facts I distort, skew, or ignore altogether in creating it. I am aware of it. In this story, canon is the actual history. However, Rita Skeeter has taught us how stories get distorted, and we all know how stories change with time. My fairy tale reflects this.**

Professor Finney was waiting for her in the Entrance Hall after breakfast the next morning. Usually kind and smiling, his face was grim and disapproving and it made Rowena even more nervous for her weekend. They walked in silence, and the road to Hogsmeade had never seemed so long. Rowena kept waiting for him to ask something about what had happened in the forest, to chastise her or tell her to be safe, but he did none of that. It unnerved her and kept her on edge; Professor Finney wasn't usually one to remain silent for so long. The silence weighed on her, willing her to speak. She reached her breaking point about halfway to Hogsmeade and wondered only after she spoke whether this was his intention.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Rowena?"

"About the night in the Forest..."

A half smile. "I was wondering if you might bring that up. You both are very lucky I found you, as I'm sure you know."

"Yes, I know that. Thank you for helping us."

"It's not a thank you I was looking for, Rowena."

"An apology?"

"Yes - and a promise not to do anything so stupid again."

She sighed. Could she tell him the truth? After all, she had no choice in that case - she was inside the Forest before she was aware of anything. And what was there to do at that point but to fight back? Morgana could have done much worse to her than the damage she received. But he wouldn't believe her, surely. If he did... he had warned her about the Hallows, told her not to get involved. She was lying before she realized she made up her mind about it. "I'm sorry, Professor. Truly. I didn't think Rhys and I would be in so much danger there, and it won't happen again."

"I'm glad to hear it." The silence continued, but its oppression lifted. The rest of the journey to Hogsmeade Station was completed in a more comfortable state, and Rowena was glad at how willing Professor Finney was to forgive, although the weight of her lie still pressed lightly against her conscious.

The Station wasn't crowded at all, which didn't surprise Rowena. It was the middle of the term and the village was small. In front of her, though, stood a tall man, skinny for his age, with messy blackish hair. Despite his appearance, however, Rowena nearly passed him by. Her own father would never stand so still; but he smiled as she approached and she let her own grin mirror his. "Papa!"

"Hi, Ro. Do you have your things?" Rowena stopped short as he spoke, expecting the bear hug he usually greeted her with. But she didn't deserve it, certainly. His coolness made sense and reminded her that her trip home was a punishment.

"Yes, Papa," she said, pointing to the bag levitating behind her.

She had her wand in her hand, but didn't think anything of it, until her father said, "That's not your wand, is it?"

"It's Rhys's. I'm borrowing it for the weekend. Mine... mine was broken when we were in the Forest. Rhys thought maybe he could get it fixed for me while I was gone." The lie was out before she realized what she said. Why was she lying to her papa? She had never lied to him before; though she remembered bitterly that he'd been lying to her for most of her life. Plus, she hadn't told him anything that had happened with Morgana and the Resurrection Stone. Hogsmeade station didn't seem like the best place to start that long story.

"Oh, yes. Okay. It's a very nice wand. I'm surprised he parted with it," Aquila said absently as he walked onto the train that had just arrived.

"The train? Why aren't we Apparating?" Rowena asked incredulously.

"It's too much work for me to do Side-Along Apparation with you and your things."

"I'm of age! I can Apparate on my own!"

"You seem to have abused that privilege the moment you received it," Aquila said, and Rowena fell into a pout reminiscent of her early teenage years.

"Fine. We'll take the train."

Like Finney on the walk over, she found herself determined to take the train ride in silence, though it lasted several hours. She took it in turns to look out the window at the speeding scenery and read her Ancient Runes homework. Occasionally, her father attempted to talk to her, but she shrugged off his attention like he had shrugged off any desire to tell the truth for the past ten years.

Together, Rowena and her father walked the short distance from the Godric's Hollow train station to their house, still in silence. Rowena knew hers was fueled by a late-adolescent stubbornness, but her father's silence was a bit of a mystery. Although, he had always retreated into himself when he was angry. He must be livid for everything she had done in the past week.

Once inside the door, shoes off and comfortable, he finally turned to her. "Shall we go into the living room, then? I would like for you to read to me." His words were stiff, like they were read from a script.

"Are you okay, Papa?"

He ignored her as he set about grabbing their well-worn copy of _Beedle the Bard_ from the bookshelf. The story of Harry Potter was bookmarked at the end. Aquila sat down and held out the book, which Rowena took. It fell open in her hands at the proper spot. "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest," she began to read.

_Once upon a time, there was an evil man who went by the name of Voldemort. This man was very afraid of dying, and did many terrible things in order to keep himself alive. Two of them interconnected and they were both very important and terribly evil. The first was murdering innocent people; the second was splitting his soul in order to prolong his life._

_Voldemort's power and influence grew, and the people of the wizarding world were in disarray, scared for their lives and never sure who to trust, because Voldemort was known for using the Unforgivable Curses. Then, one day, a Seer gave a prophecy that a child would be born soon who would be able to defeat him._

_The idea of a mere child being able to beat him obsessed him, and Voldemort decided he would kill the child before it was old enough to kill him. When he found the boy he was looking for, he killed both of his parents and tried to kill the baby as well. But the child, only a year old, did not die. Instead, it was Voldemort himself who died that night... or so everyone thought for nearly fourteen years._

_The orphan's name was Harry Potter. _

_While Harry Potter grew up, Voldemort was living in a half-state, a cursed state, as a severed soul wandering the earth with no body. This was because of his Horcruxes - the objects where pieces of his soul lived. When Harry Potter was still in school, he realized he would have to kill Voldemort or die trying._

_Rather than wasting his time studying for classes and doing his homework, Harry Potter researched the Dark Lord for six years. He tutored under wise old Professor Dumbledore, who knew Harry's destiny would be to one day face this dark wizard. _

_One day, in his lessons with Dumbledore, Harry was put through a test. It was split into three sections, testing his ability to fly, to play chess, and his ability to use logic. He attempted to beat it, but though he did well with the task that required flying, he could not pass the other two, no matter how hard he tried._

_He returned to Dumbledore, saying, "I'm sorry, Professor. But I am not very good at this test. I have one friend who can play chess, and one who is good with logic, but I can't do it on my own. I'm sorry for failing you."_

_Dumbledore simply smiled. "You have learned the importance of friendship, Harry. Take your friends, and complete the test together."_

_Harry did as he was told, and the three of them emerged triumphant._

_Again, later on, Harry was tested. The Chamber of Secrets was opened and Harry was brought down to its depths, where the body of his future wife, still a first-year, lay nearly dead. Harry didn't know what to do as he faced the snake and the memory of Voldemort as a boy. But for the sake of the girl, and with faith in the Headmaster, he was able to defeat the Basilisk and the memory. When Dumbledore saw him after the ordeal, he said, "You have learned the importance of love and loyalty, Harry. I am proud of you."_

_Finally, Harry was chosen to compete as Hogwarts champion in the Triwizard Tournament. Inside the lake were his best friend, a girl he loved, and a stranger, all in suspended animation and waiting for their rescuers. Harry, having learned the importance of friendship, wanted to save his friend. Having learned the importance of love, he wanted to save the girl. However, when the hour drew to a close and the girl was saved by another competitor, but not the stranger, Harry decided to save both his friend and the stranger, coming in last during the race._

_Shivering from the cold, but with all of them safe, Dumbledore found him. "Harry, you were only required to save your friend, but you saved the stranger as well, jeopardizing your lead to help a stranger. You now know the importance of self-sacrifice. You have done well."_

_When it came time for Harry to finish school, he found out that Voldemort had created Horcruxes. In his final lessons with Dumbledore, he found out they must be destroyed. Because Harry had learned the importance of friendship, he took his friends with him on the journey. The one who was best at logic formulated a plan, and his best friend, whom he saved from the bottom of the lake, was the first to destroy a Horcrux._

_Near the end of his journey, in the early hours of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and the girl he loved remembered the power of Basilisk fangs to destroy Horcruxes, and went down to the Chamber of Secrets together. Inside the Chamber, they shared their first kiss and destroyed another Horcrux, proving that Harry had indeed learned the power of love._

_However, he realized there was still a lesson he hadn't used, and in remembering the value of self-sacrifice, he suddenly knew that the final Horcrux had been created the night his parents died. _He _was the final Horcrux. So in the midst of a battle, Harry went into the Forbidden Forest alone and unarmed to die._

_There, Voldemort once again sent the Killing Curse at Harry, but rather than killing the orphan, it only killed the part of Voldemort's soul that had been residing in him for seventeen years. Because the boy was willing to sacrifice himself, he didn't die, and continued to fight Voldemort once the Horcrux inside of him was defeated._

_But Harry was not ruthless. He did not try to kill the evil wizard, but when he sought to disarm him, Voldemort's own Killing Curse rebounded and finally the Dark Lord was vanquished._

"The end," Rowena read, and as she closed it, the spine of the book seemed to shiver with the weight of the story. Rowena couldn't blame it - related or not, simple fairy tale or historical fact, Harry's story was powerful. Surely the three virtues he found were three of the most important to be had.

She got off the couch to return the book to its place, and beside her, her father finally seemed placated, like somehow the story had settled something inside of him. Rather than calm her, it made her more worried. He was never one to be as affected by Harry's story, although it was likely he was his direct descendant. "Papa?" she said as she returned to the couch, closer to his side this time. "Papa, are you ill?"

"No, Rowena. I'm fine. Thank you for reading to me." He closed his eyes, leaning backwards into the couch and letting it mold to him. In his sleep, she was able to study him, and the more she looked, the more disconcerted she became. Surely he was not normally that pale, with skin like porcelain, nearly translucent. Surely he had not been so skinny recently, with his shoulder bones protruding over the curve of his neck. She reached out to feel his pulse. It was weak and irregular. No matter what he said, Rowena was sure of it. Her father was dying.

Was that why he brought her home? Not as punishment, but as a last effort to see her? Maybe he wanted to read from the Bard to be reminded of times when she was younger, when she crawled into his lap while he read, and she carefully traced her finger along the words, trying to study them. It was late, now, and her day had been exhausting. Leaning down to plant one kiss upon her papa's forehead, she retreated to her old bedroom.

The room hadn't changed since before she left for Hogwarts. The walls were a pale yellow, and a pink duvet covered her bed. The carpet was soft beneath her feet. There was a chair in a corner that displayed her favorite childhood playthings. Rowena expected the familiar comfort of her room to bring her peace, but she felt removed from its childish decorations, like somehow she outgrew them in the few months since Christmas break when she last slept here. She longed for the comfort of the red and gold decorations at Hogwarts, in Gryffindor Tower... and near Rhys. Facing the weekend without him, after a week in hospital with his bed beside hers, felt suddenly lonely. She dressed for bed in a pale pink nightgown, crawled under her covers, and eventually found herself in a restless, disturbing sleep.

_Rowena and Rhys have gone back in time, and found themselves in a tent with Harry Potter himself. They were on the Horcrux hunt, sitting around a table and coming up with ideas for where to look._

_The scene shifted and all she could see were ancient artifacts, bleeding and dying - they must be the Horcruxes, she realized, as another one was stabbed with the Sword of Gryffindor._

_She was in the Forbidden Forest, Rhys on one side, Harry Potter on the other. They were approaching Voldemort. They were about to give themselves up, to exorcise the Horcrux within them. Rowena obediently dropped her wand. In front of her stood a figure in long black robes, facing away from the trio. It turned. It wasn't Voldemort who raised his wand and shot out a killing curse - it was her mother._

Rowena woke up screaming, but couldn't remember anything but the horror she had felt. She calmed herself, still feeling her racing heart trying to escape her chest, but in the silence after her scream, she heard noises from down the hall. "No, please." "I'm trying!"

She got out of bed, her slowed heartbeat racing again. The voice belonged to her father. Rowena tiptoed to his room and slowly opened the door. Her father was standing next to the dresser still in his dressing gown, his hands placed firmly on its surface, as he started down his reflection in the mirror. He seemed to be arguing with himself.

"Papa? Papa are you okay?"

"Just get out already," he hissed, but his face was still locked on the mirror, and Rowena knew instinctively he wasn't talking about her. "Get out."

Rowena quickly moved to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Papa, Papa, let me help you! I will get it out of you, okay? Just tell me what to do! I'm here, Papa. I'm right here."

"Tell her to leave. We can handle this." The voice coming from her father was different, somehow not himself. It was more determined, more sinister, than the voice that was speaking when she walked in. His eyes were less focused, his body less rigid.

"No." His face contorted with the effort to get the syllable out. "Help." He collapsed, his knees buckling and his face only just missing the corner of the dresser as he fell to a pile on the ground, Rowena unable to stop his weight.

She knelt beside him, his body pale, his pulse weak. "Papa, no. Your name is Aqulia Potter. I am your daughter, Rowena. You need to come back to me, Papa. I'm right here. Don't give up. Keep fighting."

"Out, out, out, out..." he mumbled, but his syllables began to mush together, like he was struggling to stay conscious.

"Keep fighting. Keep fighting." She reached out for his hand and held it tight. He squeezed it faintly.

"Out," he said again, then collapsed into unconsciousness. Beside him, _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ lay open to the chapter on Harry. But as Rowena reached over to put it away, a figure appeared from it.

"You weren't really in time, Rowena," Morgana said, standing before her nearly solid. "He didn't manage to get rid of me. He just ran out of strength."

"What are you doing here?! What were you doing to him?" Rowena asked. "He's your husband!"

"I'm not sure anyone before me has really understood what it meant for husband and wife to become one," she said. "Or the ancient saying that a man should lay down his life for his wife." She smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. She seemed entirely serious.

"You're going to kill him! What are you doing to him? He's going to die and you're going to be at fault, and you'll both be dead. And I... I will have no parents."

"That's not true, Rowie. You'll have me. Mother and daughter together again."

"You're stealing his life?"

"Not exactly, Rowena. Life isn't something that can be stolen, only willingly given. He poured his soul into me by choice. He just didn't realize it was a limited resource and now he's running out."

Rowena wished she had her wand, that she hadn't left it at her bedside table when she woke up. She was getting tired of facing off to her mother in the middle of the night in nightgowns. It was like her mother never wanted her to be prepared, weakened by lack of sleep, lack of armor. Rowena grimaced - it was like her. "You're a coward, Morgana."

"A coward, am I? I would think that I'm doing a fairly good job of doing exactly what I intended to do."

"And what was that? Possessing my father? Using his life to regain yours?"

"Sort of. Like I told you before - I didn't entrust my coming back to life to a seventeen-year-old. I had another plan in place, from even before the time that I searched for the Elder Wand. I entrusted my soul to Harry's story."

"You... what? You created a Horcrux out of a story of fighting Horcruxes?"

"I simply put my soul where it has always belonged. Your father found it and slowly, over time, he has come to put his trust in the story as well."

"You are evil," Rowena said. "Absolutely evil." She had no wand, no defenses, no desire to turn her back on this woman to get to her room and get it.

"Well I've got a body to enjoy, Rowie. I'm sure we'll meet again." Her mother left the room, touching the door handle, moving through it with a body that created slight noise as her feet touched the ground.

Rowena had half a mind to chase her, to grab her wand and fight her mother right then, but she needed to see if she could save her father, first. He had to make it. He needed to be okay. Plus, Rowena had a feeling her mother would be back. "Papa, Papa, I'm here for you," she said, but then ran out of his room to her own, picking up her wand from the bedside table. Rowena was thankful it was still there; Morgana might have taken it. But apparently she had more important things to do. Rowena did not want to know what they were.

She knelt over her father, feeling for a pulse that was faint at best and began to cast every healing spell she could think of over him. She couldn't tell if they were working or not. How did one heal an injured, a stolen soul? "Stay with me, Papa. I love you so much. I love you more than Mum ever did. Stay with me, please, Papa."

"Rowena?" His voice was barely a whisper, his eyes open but unfocused.

"I'm here, Papa. I'm right here."


	11. Revelation

"Ro..." Aquila said, though his voice was hoarse and weak as he lay on the ground in front of Rowena. She knelt over him, feeling a pulse that was steady, if nothing else. With what seemed to be amazing effort, Aquila lifted his right arm to his temple, wand in hand, and a silvery substance started spilling out, connected to his wand like a raindrop falling slowly from a leaf. "Flask," he added, and Rowena suddenly understood what was going on.

She stood up quickly and made her way to the cabinet she had visited before, when she was here last with Rhys. She was greeted by row after row of memories, but on the far right, she found a small collection of unused flasks. Grabbing as many as she could hold, just in case, she knelt on her father's right side and held one out, guiding his wand when he seemed incapable of keeping it as steady as he needed to.

One flask filled, she switched to a second as he reached again to his forehead for more. "Please don't be dying, Papa," she whispered. "I need you to stay with me."

The last of the memory dripped from his wand and his arm flopped uselessly to his side. "I'll stay. You can't stay... go look. Now."

Rowena had no intention of leaving him there alone, his eyes shut again, and so close to death. She quickly Flooed for a Healer to come and stay with him, giving the address. "Thank you; come right in when you get here. You'll find him alone in the master bedroom. Please take him to the living room to work on him, so you'll have more room," she said, and knew she needed to disappear quickly. The moment a Healer promised to come, she was up and pouring the closest memory into the Pensieve.

When the whirling stopped and the scene reformulated around her, Rowena recognized it as similar French countryside to what she saw on her last trip into the Pensieve. However, instead of seeing Morgana, it was her father and a young version of herself who were walking along the Seine. Rowena jogged to catch up with the pair, estimating her younger self to be about seven. She had no memory of ever being in France.

"Can we go home yet, Papa? I miss Buttercup, and Soren." The young girl was holding her father's hand, trusting as they walked along the muddy shores.

"Almost, sweetheart. We just have to find your mum. I know we'll find her soon."

She sighed the over-exaggerated sigh of a child. "That's what you said _yesterday,_ Papa. And the day before that. And I'm hungry!"

"I know you are. I am, too. And we'll get to eat soon." They stopped walking, and he squatted down so he was eye level with her. "Do you see the steeple up ahead there?"

"What's a steeple?"

"It's a triangle at the top of a building, with a cross on top."

The elder Rowena made her way beside them, watching her younger self scour the landscape. Finally, her eyes went from squinted with concentration to wide open. "I see it, Papa! I see it! What does it mean?"

"It means there is a village nearby, where we can find some food. We'll walk there now. Do you think you can make it that far?"

"I guess so."

"Keep your eye on the steeple, Ro, and you'll watch it getting bigger and bigger. When you're right underneath it, you'll have to look up and up to see the top. The bigger it is, the closer we are."

The young girl's face fixed with determination and she set out across the marsh, her father following dutifully beside. Rowena followed them, cautiously, as though they could see her intruding on this memory. Now having a set destination on which to focus her hunger, Rowena chatted happily with her father, seeming almost lighthearted. Beside her, Aquila's eyes never lightened, or showed the hint of a true smile. Before too long, however, a figure approached, a tall young man with dark hair and dark eyes. He moved cautiously, apprehensively, searching the pair with narrowed eyelids and furrowed eyebrows. _"Qui êtes-vous?"_

For a moment, Aquila's face changed to recognition, then panic, before settling in to the kindness of a stranger. _"Je m'appelle Aquila, et ici c'est ma fille, Rowena. Et vous?"_

The man dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. _"Ça ne fait rien, monsieur. Est-ce que vous connaissez une Anglaise qui est nommé Morgana?"_

"_Qui? Morgana? Non, monsieur, je ne connais pas personne du ce nom. Je suis désolé. Mais bonne chance!"_

The man continued past the pair, a limp in his gait, his face confused. Rowena's limited knowledge of French told her that her father just lied, denying that he knew anyone named Morgana. Rowena could understand his intentions in lying; she wanted to deny all associations with the woman as well. But there was still something she couldn't figure out.

Why this memory? Of all the things Papa had to offer her as he lay on the floor, why had he given her this memory? To show how he'd lied? That didn't seem right, didn't seem enough. The Frenchman, however, seemed familiar to Rowena, like she had seen him somewhere before. The recognition made no sense; this was a memory ten years old. Even if she had seen him recently... except. Except this wasn't the first time she'd traveled to the French countryside via Pensieve.

Behind her, sure enough, a mad woman was approaching the strange Frenchman, hair matted, dress dirty. "_Où est la Baguette du Sureau? Je sais que vous sait!"_

Aquila and the young Rowena were about 500 feet ahead of Morgana and the Frenchman, and Aquila pulled his daughter into the reeds along the shore. "Papa! I'm hungry, why are we stopping? It's all muddy; I'm getting dirty, Papa, and there could be bugs."

"Shh! We need to stay extra still, Ro, okay? Keep looking at the steeple. Focus on the steeple."

The elder Rowena was torn between staying to see what her father did and going back to hear what she heard already. Eventually, she turned her back on her father and watched her mother and the Frenchman. He sounded desperate, pleading with her. _"Non, je ne sais pas! C'est vrai! C'est vrai!"_

From here, the memory was new to her. She remembered how beforehand it had taken on a hollow, echoing quality. There was none of that echo now, and the scene was different. Before, her mother sounded innocent and sweet, and Monsieur DuPont had thrown her into the river, where she was unable to swim. None of that was happening. Morgana's arms were raised above her hand, a wand at the ready. _"Dites-moi maintenant, s'il y a valeur dans votre vie."_

"_Je ne sais rien!"_

"_Menteur!"_ Then barely a pause, not enough time for the man to respond, and Morgana's wand was raised, fury in her eyes._ "Avada Kedavra!"_

"No! Mama, no!" Rowena couldn't help her cries, couldn't help it as she rushed forward toward the dead man, having completely forgotten her inability to change what had already happened. She knelt by his side, tried to touch him, to save him, but her hands passed through his lifeless body. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she whimpered.

Rowena's attention was off her mother for full minutes as she nearly lost her sanity attending to the dead man, but when she turned to look at Morgana again, there was something different about her somehow, like some of her own sanity left with the murder. "It's here somewhere, I know it, the damn liar," Morgana said. "I know it's around here somewhere."

Soon, Morgana was on her knees on the edge of the river, digging in the mud until her fingernails bled, hair wilder than ever, the blood from her fingernails and knees dripping into the Seine, leaving red streaks that traveled downstream, fading pink. Rowena was tugged away from the scene by some invisible force, and as she turned, she saw her father again walking with young Rowena toward the steeple. The young girl's face was vacant and free, staring ahead, not once looking backward toward her mother.

"Will we be there soon, Papa? To the steeple? I'm still hungry."

"Yes, sweetheart," he said, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. "We're nearly there."

"I wish I had a mother to bring with us," she added, distant, like an afterthought.

"I know, I know. I wish it, too," he said, and with that, Rowena faded from the scene and found herself face down on the floor of his bedroom again. Her breathing was fast and shallow and she sat down, trying to calm herself. She needed time to _think_, to figure out why this memory was so similar to and yet so different from the first French memory she'd found.

"Did you hear something?" a voice called from the living room.

"Nah, it was probably just the wind," came another voice.

"Still, shouldn't we make sure? This man looks like he was attacked in some way. What if the attacker is back?"

"Then we shouldn't be the ones to find him. We're just here to Heal the guy and move on."

A sigh. "Fine. He's nearly stable anyway."

Rowena's heart beat against her and she worried for a minute that she would be found, confused as the attacker rather than the person trying to save her father. There was no time to think, after all; she needed to leave before the Healers found her. It seemed his dying wish was for her to see those memories. But if the conversation she overheard was any indication, he was nearly stable. Still, there was more Rowena needed to know; she grabbed the second flask and poured it into the basin.

Morgana was alive and in the living room. A young Rowena was nowhere to be found, so the elder Rowena wasn't sure of the time frame. Surely it was earlier - or much later - than the memory in France, though. Morgana did not look nearly so frightening, her hair tamed and silky still, pulled back in a bun at the base of her neck. But still her face was set, determined.

Aquila stood across from her, arms on the kitchen counter, a fight in his eyes Rowena hadn't seen in years. "No, Morgana. You're not going back."

"Yes, I am. I have a lead for the Elder Wand, and I need to pursue it."

"All you've cared about from the day we got married is the damn Elder Wand! What about our daughter? What about Rowena? Are you just going to let her grow up thinking you were never around? She loves you, you know."

For an instant, for a moment Rowena could barely quantify except in the clarity of the memory, Morgana's face grew sober, almost regretful. "She'll be better off not knowing me, thinking I might have been a good mother if I were here." Then, finished speaking, her face again took on a maniacal quality, and her eyes, put out by one sane thought, turned fiery again. "There are more important things than that silly girl, anyway, Aquila. Look at the way she's afraid of a Kneazle! After only one scratch, too. I'm searching for _immortality_. Don't you get that? I thought you of all people, heir of the Potters, would understand!"

"And I thought you loved me - not just my name. I suppose all of us are mistaken at some point," he spat at her. "The ancient people used to think that immortality was attained through having children, you know."

"The ancient people are dead. I have no intention to join them."

"Have it your way, then, but if you're going to leave, you will never come back here again."

Her eyes were wild, her mouth curled into a twisted smile. "If that's what you want, that is perfectly fine by me. But you know you don't mean it, Aquila. You know you don't. You still love me!" It was an accusation, a challenge to be met, but Rowena's father couldn't face it. He looked down, walked away, refused to answer.

"Rowena, come here, darling," he said, moving into the living room. "There's no need to be scared of Tiffany."

"I'm not scared of her, Daddy," the young girl said as the elder Rowena made her way into the living room. She was very close in age to the Rowena from the last memory - perhaps only weeks apart. She sat curled in a chair, her legs close to her chest, pressed against the back far away from the Kneazle.

"You're not?"

"Well, only a little," she admitted. "But I'm more scared of Mama."

"Why are you scared of Mama?"

"I think she's going to hurt me. I don't remember much about her, except when she comes around I always get scared and then my mind goes blank and I don't remember things for awhile. I don't like it. I want her to leave."

Aquila moved to sit beside his daughter on the chair, picked her up with the grace that comes with practice, and set her gently on his lap. "She'll be gone soon, Ro. It will just be you and me again, like before."

Rowena's face was serene as her father stroked her hair and they rocked back and forth, father and daughter. These moments were ones Rowena remembered ten years later. These moments that made her fond of her father as a child, and admiring of him as an adult. But seeing it now as the comfort that came only between lies and deception shed a light on him she wanted to burn out.

"Aquila? Leave the child alone and come back here a moment, please," Morgana called, and to Rowena it sounded like she was putting on a show of domesticity for her daughter.

He got up, patted young Rowena's head, gave her one last glance from the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. He made no such attempt at the airs of kindness. "What do you want, now?"

"In all honesty, I only came back from France at all to give you one thing. It is the only possession that ever mattered to me." Aquila smirked and rolled his eyes, and the look was so familiar it could have been Rowena's mirror. Like her, he must have been thinking about the possessions she didn't yet have - the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone - possessions that meant more to her than her daughter's well being and, later on, her daughter's life. Morgana pulled a book from her satchel on the counter, a book that was worn and old already, a book Rowena, looking on, found most familiar. "Keep this book close to you, after I am gone. Read it to Rowena, tell her the stories of the Bard. My own mother used to read them to me, especially Harry's story, and they brought me comfort and hope. Maybe they will bring Rowie the same. If I never see you or her again, I hope you can keep this book and remember me."

Aquila nodded and took the book with more reverence than Rowena would have liked. Maybe it was true, what old sages said, that love destroys logic. It made her want to shun love, seeing what it had done to her father. He tucked the book under his arm without bothering with any sort of goodbye to his wife and joined Rowena again. He knelt down beside her in the chair and raised his own wand to her forehead, producing an empty flask from his pocket. Did he always keep them there? Were they readily available in case of emergency? And why did they bother to save her memories?

She succumbed to his treatment with the ease of habit, and once her eyes were fuzzy from his _Obliviate_, he cuddled beside her on the chair. "Shall we read?"

"Okay, Papa."

"Once upon a time, there was an evil man who went by the name of Voldemort..."

The memory faded to black and again Rowena was on the floor in her father's room. She forced herself to remain still and calm while she listened to her house and hoped for silence. The voices of the Healers were gone, and she felt something like safe. She sat up and leaned against the side of her father's bed, clasping her knees to her chest like she had as a child. Why _these_ memories? Of all the things her father wished to tell her, why did he choose these two things?

She had already seen a version of the memory from France before, although surely he didn't already know that. But the differences between the two were striking. The hollow, far-away feeling from the first memory wasn't, then, due to age. The second memory, her father's own, seemed more true, and made more sense with what she already understood about her mother. But why were they there? If it was, indeed, after the second memory, why had they sought her out again? And why had her mother killed a seemingly innocent man?

The questions haunted her, made her sick to her stomach. But the second memory set was just as confusing. From what Rowena had seen earlier, these visits and obliviations were almost commonplace in their household. What made this instance so special that he wanted her to know about it? Was it truly the last time Morgana visited before she died? Rowena didn't know what to believe about when Morgana died anymore. If it was, why was it so important? All she did was torment her husband and hand him a book. Nothing more.

Exhausted from speculating about the memories, Rowena decided it was time to check on her father. She got up and went down to the living room, and Aquila was there, in the very same chair where he first read to her from Beedle the Bard. Someone sat beside him, but she could tell it was not a trained Healer who sat with him. Still, she recognized him immediately. "Rhys? What are you doing here?"

"I spent all night worrying about you," he said, holding up a glass of water for Aquila to drink. "Something didn't feel right. I kept re-reading that note and thinking about how your papa normally writes you and it didn't click. I knew something had to be wrong. I left Hogwarts as soon as I could and Apparated here."

She knelt down beside him, awkwardly gave him a hug, then pulled away immediately. "Um, well, I'm glad you came. Obviously, I guess. I don't know what I would do now without you. Were the Healers still here when you arrived?"

"Yes. I said... I said he was my uncle and you let me know he needed help. When they told me no one else was home when they found him, I worried about you. But he needed me to stay, so I did."

"I was in the Pensieve. He was knocked unconscious, fighting something within him, and when he woke up, he gave me two memories and told me I needed to look at them right away. I thought- I thought it was his dying wish."

"Why did he give you the memories?"

"That's the thing," Rowena said, sighing, as the red glow of sunrise came through the windows. "I have no idea."


	12. Redoubled

Exhausted from nearly twenty-four hours of being awake, Rowena spent much of the next day sleeping. When she woke again in the evening, the blood-red sunset streaming through the window, she found Rhys and Aquila downstairs in the living room. Her father was awake and conversing; though he looked weak, as if he had nearly succumbed to an illness, he seemed like he would be all right.

Rowena had many questions to ask before she left Godric's Hollow, but only a few hours to get answers. She knew they needed to return to Hogwarts and to classes soon, especially since they had missed so many, but the thirst for answers was strong. As she went about the kitchen preparing food for her father, Rhys joined her, coming close and leaning into her for a hug that nearly threw her off guard. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

"As okay as I can be," she replied. "I'm worried about Papa. And he must know something that will help us, but I'm afraid to ask. I'm afraid mentioning whatever happened to him will only set him on edge and push him back to fighting his demon again."

"I worry about him, too. And you, Ro. We have to leave soon."

She focused all her attention on breathing in and out for one steady moment. "I know." Rowena finished the preparations for their dinner and brought it to the table. Rhys started to leave to get Aquila from his chair, but before he could get out of the room, Rowena reached for his arm. "Wait, please. Do you think... do you think we could bring him to Hogsmeade? Set him up at an inn in order to look after him? Maybe Headmaster Malfoy would let us leave school to take care of him..."

"And ask him questions when he's ready to answer. I think it's worth a shot. Do you want to Floo him? I'll get your father ready for dinner and ask him if he would mind a short stay in Hogsmeade."

"Thanks, Rhys, I'll do that."

She made her way to the fireplace in the living room and called out for the Headmaster's office, hoping it would work. As she knelt over the fireplace and stuck her head inside, she found herself dizzy and disoriented, but recognized the walls full of portraits that greeted her. "Headmaster Malfoy?" she called.

"Who's there?" His voice was suspicious, which was a rare trait for him.

"It's Rowena Potter, sir. I'm in Godric's Hollow with my Papa."

"Oh, yes. I remember the note he sent. How is it going?"

She sighed, trying to display the sadness she naturally felt. "Not well. He's ill and needs taken care of, but I have classes I need to attend in the morning. Do you think, I mean, I know it wouldn't be perfect, but do you think he could stay in Hogsmeade in a place where I can care for him? My mother is dead; he doesn't have anyone else."

Rowena tried to speak as she would have a month ago, but it was difficult now to think of her mother as dead when she was, somehow, very much alive. But she needed killing, and Rowena was certain her father could help. "I think we can arrange something," he said. "I don't want you Apparating to Godric's Hollow every afternoon. When are you coming back?"

"By an overnight train. We leave in a few hours."

"I'll have Professor Finney meet you in the morning."

"Thanks. Er- Rhys is with me," she added, realizing this might be important if a professor was to meet them.

"I'm aware. I expect you to attend all of your classes, Ms. Potter. And Mr. Finnegan as well."

"Of course. I'm just worried about Papa."

"We'll set him up a room at Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Headmaster. I really appreciate it." Rowena joined her father and Rhys at the dining table already grinning. Rhys looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it only made her smile bigger. "Papa?" she asked as she pulled out her chair.

"Yes, Ro?"

"How do you feel about coming back to Hogwarts with us and finishing your recovery there? Headmaster Malfoy will prepare a room for you."

A faint smile appeared on his pale face, bringing a hint of rosy color to his cheeks for the first time since Rowena had started her visit. "I think that is a great idea. When do we leave?"

"About an hour after dinner. Enough time to pack."

"I don't need much," he said weakly. "Just some clothes. And this." _The Tales of Beedle the Bard,_ which hadn't often left his grasp since he came to, was clutched to his chest even tighter than before.

"No, Papa. You don't need that; there are copies at the library if you really want to read the stories." It was difficult for her to reason with her father like a child; the role reversal sat uncomfortably in her stomach. But it had seemed necessary once he came to again, and Rowena was determined to do what was necessary for him.

"I need this one, Ro. This is where _she_ came from."

Across the table from each other, Rowena and Rhys exchanged worried glances. "What are you talking about, Papa? Who came from there? Do you mean Babbity Rabbity?"

Her father shook his head defiantly. "My wife. She lives here. I need to keep her safe so she can keep living."

Rowena choked on her dinner. Ignoring her manners, she coughed the food up and spit it onto her plate. "My _mother_ is living inside that book?! What are you talking about?"

"She came for me! She told me if I read this book and thought of her then she would come, and she did... but then... but then..." He dropped the book suddenly, and it clattered on the table, sending his fork flying across the room. "Then somehow I _became_ her and I stopped remembering. I wanted to be me again, Ro. You have to understand. I love her, but I wanted to be me again."

Aquila seemed to lose his sanity momentarily, falling into a trance; his eyes rolled backwards, his body lay limp against his chair. Rhys rushed to his side and Rowena, hands shaking, picked up the book and opened it to the place that had been bookmarked for so long, the book her mother gave her father in the memory she saw the night before. "Once upon a time," she read aloud, "there was an evil man who went by the name of Voldemort. This man was very afraid of dying, and did many terrible things in order to keep himself alive." She skipped ahead a sentence. "The second was splitting his soul in order to prolong his life."

Like her father, she dropped the book, but her action had more purpose to it. She didn't want to hold it anymore. Rhys looked up at her from where he sat nursing her father. "Horcruxes?"

Rowena nodded. "I think so. All this time I thought it was _Harry_ my mother had admired, but it was actually... I just don't understand."

It wasn't until they were on the night train two hours later when lucidity finally appeared across her father's face, and he continued the conversation where they left off. "You saw the memories I gave you?" he asked, his voice returning to its normal register and rhythm.

"I did."

"Do you remember what your mother said before she left? How she hoped I would keep the book and remember her?" He waited for Rowena's acknowledgment, then continued. "She left me one more thing, in a note placed between the cover and the front page. It was short. I can remember it all, though I burned it after reading it, like she requested. It said that she wanted to pursue the Elder Wand, to find a way to be more powerful than anything, but her faith was not in the Hallows. She heard the apocryphal story about Harry during the year before Voldemort was finally killed, when Harry was presented with the choice between pursuing the Hallows for selfish gain and pursuing the Horcruxes.

"'Horcruxes or Hallows,' she wrote. 'That was Harry's choice. In the end, he chose Horcruxes. And I have entrusted my soul to Harry's story. Look after me, Aquila, even when I am gone. I love you now and always.' For years, I read that book, and I could feel her soul inside of me and growing stronger. But now she tries to take over, and I hate it. I want to _be_ me and _love_ her. I don't want to _be_ her. I fight with her all the time about it, but she doesn't get it. No, Ro, she doesn't get it." His eyelids began to droop and his face relaxed like melting chocolate as he fell asleep.

Rhys and Rowena were sitting across from him, and as he slept they both moved toward the other, hands interlacing. Rowena turned to face her best friend. "I think I understand now, Rhys."

His free hand came automatically to her hair, brushing it behind her ear. "Then why do you still look so scared?"

"_Because_ I understand. I did this. I brought her back."

"I thought we already knew that. And what does that have to do with your father? Didn't he just say that he was the one to bring her back?"

"We both did, in a way. I knew I brought her back like in the story of the three brothers; at first there was a veil between us. But then, if she had a Horcrux and her soul needed a body... I created it. I gave her a body to put her mutilated soul into, and she's been feeding it with the life of my father."

Rowena and Rhys sat in silence, letting the weight of the situation fall onto their shoulders. Across from them, Aquila slept soundly, trying to fight off the influence of his wife. Stars shone through the window by Rhys and the moonlight made the red in his hair more prominent. He seemed to feel her gaze, because he turned from the window and looked at her, speaking for the first time in nearly half an hour. "Rowena... we have more to sort out than just what's happening with your parents."

"I know we do," she replied, looking down at the seat between them where their hands still lay intertwined. "I just don't want to get distracted from destroying Morgana. I can't let myself fall head over heels. When people do that, they forget about everything else... and I've done enough forgetting for a lifetime."

"Of course you have. I don't want you to forget anything, Ro. It's just that I've liked you so long and it's been really hard to ignore recently - okay, that sounded wrong. I don't want to forget about everything else. I just don't want to forget about this, either," he said, holding their hands up between them.

Rowena smiled; with everything that had been happening recently, it had been a long time since Rhys had talked in the rambling fashion that used to define him. It was part of what she loved about her best friend. Without thinking first, or pausing to explain anything, she closed the distance between them and placed her lips tentatively against his. Within moments, she had stopped thinking about proper form or what she was supposed to be doing; it was like she already knew. For a few brief seconds, she understood what it meant when Jacie Weasley talked about having chemistry with someone. If she hadn't known any better, she would have sworn there were fireworks exploding outside their window.

But soon, far too soon, Rowena forced herself to pull away, steadying her uneven breaths. "That's how I feel, Rhys. And that's where I stand. But we can't do that again until the Horcrux is destroyed and Papa is better. Fair?"

His eyes were dizzying, his face still stunned. Slowly, he nodded, then reached an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. "Is this okay for now?"

"Just for now, while we sleep," she responded, and closed her eyes.

The sun rose golden in the sky as Rowena awoke, stiff-necked from sleeping against Rhys. The train had slowed and finally stopped in the antiquated station. The pair arose together, then distributed Aquila's weight between them, his lucidity from the night before disappearing with dawn. As promised, Professor Finney was waiting for them at Hogsmeade Station. He took one look at the grown man between them and his face fell. He took Rowena's place at Aquila's left shoulder, then looked back toward her. "He really is sick, isn't he?"

Rowena nodded. "I'm afraid he might be dying. He's not himself."

"We'll take care of him," Professor Finney insisted. "He's going to be all right."

Rowena wished she could believe him.

During the long walk back, Finney's attention was not on the dying man he supported but on Rowena. "What kind of illness does he have? Is it typical or magical?"

"It's magical," she replied, "and I'm not sure there's an easy cure."

"We have some of the best wizards in the world here. You know we'll do everything we can for him. And Rowena?"

"Yes?"

"I don't care if you think you're the only person in the world who can save him, I want you and Rhys to stay safe. The last few weeks, you've been uncharacteristically reckless, and I don't want to see it happen again. If I catch you or Rhys in the Forest at all, you will both be expelled immediately."

"Surely Headmaster Malfoy-"

"Was the one to suggest it," Professor Finney interrupted curtly. "You two have an education to finish."

"Yes, sir," Rowena acquiesced, but didn't truly believe herself. She had a feeling she would find her way into the Forest again.

It was difficult to go to classes as usual that day, but having Care of Magical Creatures helped. At least Professor Finney had seen Rowena's father. He may not have understood the full details of his illness, but he had seen enough to cut her a little bit of slack as she worked. This late in the term, it was all revision anyway, and to Rowena's relief, there were no creatures involved - only looking over textbooks and taking notes.

Genevieve was quick to join Rhys and Rowena, her long hair toppling over her shoulder while she wrote. "I didn't see either of you this weekend," she whispered. "I wondered... was it about your mum, Rowena?"

"It wasn't supposed to be," Rowena replied without looking up. The properties of unicorn blood was a fairly new subject to her; she spent the week they learned it unconscious in the hospital wing. "My papa sent me a note, asking me to return home for the weekend as punishment for being in the Forest. But it wasn't really him who sent it."

"What do you mean?"

Rowena looked to Rhys, hoping the question in her eyes came across right. She didn't have the energy to explain everything she'd been through, the memories she'd seen, the battle her father seemed to have been fighting for years. He nodded and began to speak.

When he finished, Genevieve barely paused. "Well then, I suppose it's time to go to the library again."

"Ravenclaws," Rhys said, laughing. "Is it always about the library?"

Genevieve looked around cautiously, spotted Serah Macmillan on the far side of the room, doubled over her parchment. Genevieve nodded sharply then whispered, "Where else will we learn how to destroy a Horcrux?"

Rowena felt her breath catch at the thought. She'd put two and two together, but hadn't realized the implications of her mother's Horcrux. She would have to destroy her father's most prized possession, her strongest real childhood memory, in order to destroy her mother and save her father. It was an easy sacrifice to make, but it was nonetheless a sacrifice. "You're right, Gen. When should we meet?"

"Tomorrow night, maybe?"

"Damn, I have detention at seven tomorrow night. I'd forgotten about that. But if we meet at six thirty, we can work together for a bit before I have to start re-shelving books."

"That works for me," Rhys added, and the three of them resumed their studies.

Tuesday's classes were long and drawn out for Rowena, who was still getting used to sitting in a classroom again after a week in the hospital wing. As Professor Binns droned on in his ghostly voice about the ancient Goblin Wars, Rowena had to force herself to pay attention. She loved history, but the evening in the library was waiting for her and the hours seemed to pass much more slowly the closer it got.

Finally, dinner eaten, Rhys and Rowena approached the Ravenclaw table and Genevieve joined the group. They made their way to the library solemnly, like a funeral march taken in silence. Dewey looked up from his desk opposite the door when they arrived, his eyes magnified as always by his glasses. "Rowena," he said. "I was beginning to think you had forgotten about our arrangement. Detention every week for the rest of the term and yet you somehow missed your second week."

"I was in the hospital wing! I really don't mind working for you, but it's difficult to do while unconscious."

"A likely story. And if true, I suppose you got yourself knocked out to avoid your duties?"

"Of course not!"

"Good, then get to work."

"I'm half an hour early; I shouldn't have to start until seven!"

"That would be true, Ms. Potter, if you had been here last week as expected. You are here thirty minutes early, which means you'll only have to stay ninety minutes late to make up the two hours you missed last week."

"Seriously? That's so-"

"No shouting in the library, Rowena. Please get to work. The stack of books is rather large today, you might notice." She sent an apologetic look to her friends and split off in the opposite direction from them. As she began to file away the books, she tried to think of ways to still work with her friends who, to their credit, had stayed and were browsing through the catalogue without her. Nothing came to mind, though, as she felt the owl-eyes of Dewey constantly on her.

The evening passed slowly, and knowing she would be there until half past ten that evening only made the minutes slower. Finally, nearly halfway through her first stack of books, she came to one that needed to be filed away near where Rhys and Genevieve were working. She crouched low to return it to the bottom shelf, discreetly grabbing Rhys's elbow and pulling him down with her. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, staring straight at the shelf.

"It's okay. We've only come into one problem so far... and you might be able to get around it. We've been thinking of a plan for you."

"You have?"

"Yes. We think the book we need is in the Restricted Section. After all, you-know-whats are a restricted topic. But we can't get in there without a good excuse. _You _can - as long as you're filing away something else."

Rowena's eyes became wider, still facing the nondescript shelf, as understanding dawned. "So I grab a stack of books, file away the ones that belong there, and come out with the ones that don't... and the one you need."

"Precisely," came the sweet, high voice of Genevieve. Rowena walked away without another word, picking up a pile at random, and trying to carefully sort through the remainder for a book that belonged in the Restricted Section. The one she found did not please her at all. A revived version of _The Monster Book of Monsters, 50th Edition Special_ growled at her from behind the stacks, its pages rippling menacingly. She was glad the book was in the Restricted Section, at any rate; she couldn't imagine using it as a textbook for Care of Magical Creatures. But it was there, thankfully, that she had learned how to control this animal of a book. Counter-intuitive as it seemed, she stretched out a shaking hand and stroked the spine. It calmed down and she gingerly picked it up, walking purposefully toward the restricted section.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'm putting books away! Someone was dumb enough to grab this one," Rowena said, holding the monster book above her head.

"Well hurry out of there."

She knelt down, quickly re-shelved the offending book and scanned the titles for anything related to Horcruxes. Nothing stood out at all, so she grabbed one about Voldemort and finished her shift. At ten thirty, when she could leave, Dewey was asleep at his desk, snoring loudly. Rowena snuck out, the book hidden in her bag, before he could wake, and she met Rhys and Genevieve back in the Gryffindor Common Room.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm here," Genevieve said as Rowena approached the fire. "Rhys thought I should stay, after all, I found a really interesting book."

"I'm glad you did, because I definitely didn't. I just grabbed one about Voldemort."

"That might come in useful, too. Have you had a chance to start reading?"

"Not yet. Tomorrow's Wednesday?"

"Yes, why?"

"My first class isn't until ten. I'll start reading now." The book was sinister, to say the least. Entitled _The Life and Times of Lord Voldemort_, the cover pictured a snake eating its own tail, gold against a red background. She gingerly opened the cover, half expecting it to scream as she turned the pages. But while the book did have a lot about Voldemort's Horcruxes, it talked about them in reverence and made no reference at all to how they were destroyed.

"Wow!" said Genevieve from the chair across from her. "This, uh..." She turned to the spine of the book to read the author's name. "This Hermione Weasley sure goes into detail about everything. Her name sounds familiar, though."

"I think that's the name of one of Harry's friends," said Rowena. "But it would be hard to believe a book she wrote would still be around."

"This one says it was translated by a Verity Trueheart in 2800 and the book is a twenty-fifth edition. I suppose it's possible. Anyway, it's a story about the war from Harry's perspective. And Hermione describes destroying Horcruxes. Apparently they used several different things to destroy them. Godric Gryffindor's sword, which had been coated in Basilisk venom... well, that's no use to us anymore. No one knows where it is. A Basilisk fang... again, no use to us. The Horcrux inside Harry was destroyed with the Killing Curse, but I'm sure that only works on live Horcruxes. But then... then one of them was destroyed with Fiendfyre."

"We could do that, then, couldn't we?" asked Rhys. "I mean, I know it's dangerous, but you've already blown up the entire Forest, Ro, so I don't see how much worse it could be. Maybe we could find a way to control it somehow? Contain the curse so that it only destroyed the book? We might have to go out into the Forest, though, and if we do that we might get expelled. Do you think it's worth it?"

"Rhys, calm down. I think it's the only choice we've got. But I want to take things a little bit more cautiously this time. Let's see if there's a way to contain the spell first before we go trying it. Plus, we will have to pry the book out of my Papa's hands first."

Genevieve's eyes alighted. "Unless we can convince him to destroy it himself."


	13. Return

After classes on Wednesday, Rowena, Rhys, and Genevieve made their way cautiously into Aquila's room at Hogwarts. It was cramped, but they felt it might take all three of them to convince him that destroying the book was the right idea. He was awake and seemed more himself than he had been in a long time. When they entered, he rose onto his elbows and smiled. "Good to see you three. How are classes going?"

"Strenuous, but worth it," Rowena replied, leaning down to give him a quick hug. "I can't imagine how difficult everything will be before our N.E.W.T.s next year."

He chuckled. "It will be insane. But you're smart kids, I know you'll do fine."

"Thanks, Papa. How are you feeling?"

"Good. They're taking good care of me here. I'm glad you thought to bring me. Healers aren't this good back in Godric's Hollow."

Rowena's smile was halfway formed from guilt. "We didn't just bring you here because of the healers, though. We also, well, we need your help."

"Does this have to do with your mother?"

She cast a sidelong glance back at her friends, who nodded encouragingly. "It does, Papa. She's already tried to kill us once, and we need to stop her."

His expression was torn, and Rowena could see the love he still had for his wife fighting with the truth of what she was doing to him. "I know you do, sweetheart. How can I help, though? I'm too weak to do anything, and I am still in love with her. I don't know if I could hurt her." Rowena patted his hand, trying to encourage him, but again his face changed. "That's not true, Ro. I can hurt her. I already have hurt her, in fact. The memories that I gave you - they weren't complete. Not exactly."

"What do you mean? It seemed complete to me."

"They were whole; I didn't take anything out, but I stopped them before they were truly over. In France at the countryside, after she killed the man, she created... she created a Horcrux then and there. I watched it from the bushes before I took you to the town for food. I knew what she had done, and although I didn't know what object she stored her soul in, I knew she would never be the same.

"I knew it when she came back at the end of the memory I gave you from our house. We finished reading the story together for the first time, and she knocked on the door." His eyes were unfocused, but Rowena was sure this was because he immersed himself in the memory, not because her mother was trying to take over again. "It was such a strange feeling, having my wife knock on the door. She came back to remind me how important it was to keep the book safe, and when she did, I remembered her trip to France. Of _course_ her soul was inside the book. Of course it was.

"When she turned to leave again, I stopped her, spinning her around with a hand on her shoulder and pulling her in for a kiss."

"In front of me?"

Aquila laughed. "We're your parents! What did it matter to you, then, to see your parents kissing? Anyway, in the moment just before, while her back was turned, I had grabbed a knife from the counter and while we kissed... I stabbed her through the heart." Tears stained his face as he recounted the story. "I still regret it; I couldn't bring myself to try to kill the book even after I... I knew I had to, but I couldn't do it. Years later, when I finally did try, it regenerated itself. I couldn't think of a way to make her soul disappear completely, so instead I obeyed her final request. I kept it safe."

"It's time to destroy it, Papa."

"I know," he said, though he held the book tight against his chest. "You'll take it from me, and I won't even know, right?"

"No, Papa," she said, stroking his arm gently, like a caretaker would. "We need you to be the one who destroys it."

His eyes bolted open, alarmed. "Why?"

"Because we have to use Fiendfyre and your magic is stronger than ours. We'll be right there, but you have to be the one to do it."

"No, I can't. I'm not strong enough. She might try to come back."

"She might try to come back even if she doesn't try to take over your body, Papa. We'll wait until you're feeling better and we've found a way to control it, but then we have to do it."

"Control Fiendfyre? I know how."

"You do?"

"All fire requires oxygen to survive. You just have to literally contain it. If you only need the book to burn, you just have to make sure you can stifle it - with dirt or something - as soon as possible afterward. There's a charm, too, that counters it. But it's complicated and I never learned it." He smiled weakly, then closed his eyes. The trip to lucidity seemed to have cost him. After a few minutes, making sure he was truly asleep, the trio left, once again inviting Genevieve into their Common Room.

The whole way back, Rowena was silent, thinking over everything her father had told her. But one thing in particular kept bothering her. Morgana had come back after she and her father started reading the book. She came back and Aquila killed her.

Rowena had a nagging feeling that she'd watched. At seven years old, Rowena watched her father murder her mother. Deserving or not, she had been there and likely hadn't understood the implications. All it took was an Obliviate afterward and she went back to believing that she _hadn't_ watched her mum die.

It was no wonder she could see Thestrals, then, but why did it take so long? When they sat down by the fireside, Rhys turned to her and squeezed her hand. "You haven't said anything since we left. Is everything okay?"

"I was just thinking... I must have witnessed my mum's death."

Genevieve stayed confused, but within a moment, understanding crossed Rhys's face. "And all of a sudden you can see Thestrals."

"Exactly. But why only now? She died before I came to Hogwarts."

Genevieve looked thoughtful. "Up until you had the conversation with your mum's apparition, didn't you think she died in childbirth?"

Rowena nodded. "So what?"

"Maybe when she told you that you were seven when she died, something clicked subconsciously. Your brain was told how old you were, and a part of it began to remember everything you went through."

A moment's processing and her brain seemed to nudge her toward accepting Genevieve's explanation. It made sense. "Okay, so what now?"

"I don't think there is really a 'what now', Ro. I guess we get to go back to being regular students again while we wait for your father to finish recovering. We might actually get a chance to..." He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"Morgana's still out there, Rhys. I don't know if I'm ready yet."

He nodded and dropped her hand, and Rowena became awkwardly conscious of Genevieve's attentive expression. She shook off the lingering fireworks and quickly changed the subject.

The next evening, they again visited Aquila after classes. He was able to get out of his sickbed and wander about the room, but only when supported by Rowena. His improvement in mobility was stark over the day before, but Rowena could tell he wasn't yet ready to go outside, let alone cast a complicated spell. She set him back down on his bed then sat beside him.

"You're doing well, Papa. I'm really proud of you."

"Thanks, Ro. I think maybe tomorrow I'll be ready."

She grinned. "I was thinking exactly the same thing. I'll pick you up at nightfall and the two of us can head out."

"But Ro, what about Genevieve and me?"

"We can't risk all of us getting caught out there - two is dangerous enough, but four is conspicuous. Remember what Professor Finney said?"

His face fell. "Okay. But we'll be at the window watching, and if anything goes wrong..."

"I get it, and I wouldn't expect anything less from you."

"Um..."

"Yeah, Gen?"

"What if things are going wrong right now?"

Rowena didn't have time to ask what she meant. She followed her friend's gaze to the door, which was rattling. The doorknob was twisting. The air in the room felt strangely still; no one was breathing.

"Finally," Morgana said when she opened the door. "Maybe getting a physical body back wasn't my best idea."

"But... but how..." Rowena sputtered after staring at her mother. "Papa's getting better!"

"He still loves that book, Ro. He still pours himself into it when you're gone. But he got me far enough. There were potions for the rest."

"Then what are you doing here? Get on with whatever life you plan on living in that disgusting body."

"The life I plan on living starts here, Rowie. I've explained this. You and me together."

"I don't believe you. Get out." She pointed her wand at her mother, unblinking.

"I have work to do first, Rowie. Your father has turned against me; he knows my secrets and has chosen to oppose me. I must do away with him."

Rhys and Genevieve were up in an instant, wands out, and with Rowena they moved in front of Aquila's bed. "You mean you've taken all you can get from him and you don't need him anymore. You're disgusting."

"Get out of the way, you three," she responded calmly. "I have no issue taking you down before him."

"Stupefy!" Rowena screamed, and let herself smile as her mother's body fell temporarily to the ground. She grabbed the book from her father and ran as fast as she could throughout the halls of Hogwarts. Her mother would wake up soon, certainly, and when she did, Rowena wanted to be deep into the Forest.

Rowena had no idea how long her Stunning Spell would last. The darkness was deep outside, filling the school with shadows, but Rowena wasn't worried. Dawn would come soon enough, and in the light, she hoped, everything her mother was and wasn't would be revealed. For now, however, all that needed to happen was getting to the Forest.

She didn't have the Invisibility Cloak, or Professor Finney's permission, or any of the other things she planned on receiving. There wasn't time for those anymore; sometimes it really was a matter of life and death. Some things were more important than the thought of expulsion. Keeping her sanity and her father, and destroying her mother, for instance. Footsteps followed her throughout the halls, echoing too loudly on the stairs, but a quick glance behind her showed only Genevieve and Rhys. Their presence relieved her: some things weren't meant to be fought alone.

Her friends caught up when they reach the grounds, still running. "Have you seen Morgana? Has she woken up?"

"I don't know," Rhys said. "And I'm afraid she'll go for your father before us."

Rowena hesitated, ready to turn around and go back for him, but Rhys put a steady hand on her shoulder. "Don't. You won't help. The best thing you can do is destroy the book."

She nodded, still wary. "Do you think Papa will be okay?"

"I don't know. But I hope so."

They were about halfway to the Forest, running on the soft dewy grass, when the castle doors heaved open behind them and slammed shut. Morgana was coming, and though Rowena couldn't see her face from the distance, especially in the darkness, she could almost feel her fury, and they ran all the harder.

However, Rhys broke away from the girls, running perpendicular to them instead. "What are you doing?"

"If we don't want to get expelled, I think our best bet is to tell Finney now and bring him with us. Maybe he'll know what to do."

Rowena and Genevieve shared a quick glance, but Morgana was gaining on them and they didn't have much time to decide. Perhaps Rhys was right, and having Finney there would help. If he was wrong... Rowena didn't want to think about their punishment. There were too many important things to think about. Genevieve's eyes seemed to be attempting to convince her that Rhys was right as well; she turned back to him, nodded, then took off running yet again.

This time, she didn't bother going deep into the Forest like she had been in the past. She made it far enough to be under the cover of the charred trees before stopping, hands on her knees and panting with the effort.

"Come on, Ro. We don't have much time."

Her brain was scrambled from the run and the panic; deviating from the plan had thrown off her sense of where she was and why. "I know, but what do we do next?"

"Exactly what we would have had your father do, but we have to do it ourselves."

"Are you sure our magic is good enough?"

Genevieve shrugged. "I guess we'll find out." She pointed her wand at a clearing and began letting magic do the digging for her. Careful to hold the book underneath her left arm, Rowena joined her, the excess dirt piling neatly at one corner as the hole got deeper and deeper. Behind them came the thumping of footsteps and panicked, Rowena edged to the hole and looked in. It was only about four feet deep.

"Is it enough?"

"I don't think so. I want it as deep as we can get it."

"But someone's coming! If they sneak up on us and attack us, they'll take the book first. Shouldn't we do what we can?"

"Just a few more seconds, and less time than that if you help," Genevieve insisted.

Sending one annoyed look her friend's way, she pointed her wand back at the pile, trying to ignore the footsteps as they got louder and louder behind her. The ground was firm at this point, and it took more and more effort the deeper they got. As soon as Genevieve nodded that they were done, however, the footsteps stopped behind them. Rowena turned around slowly, keeping the book behind her back as she rotated. She didn't realize how tense her posture was until it relaxed when she realized it was only Rhys and Professor Finney.

"Oh good," Rhys said. "You haven't started yet."

"No, we haven't. We thought for a moment... I mean, did you see Morgana?"

"She's on her way," Professor Finney said, sounding grave. "We better hurry."

Rowena stepped toward their professor, handing him the book. "We planned on using Fiendfyre, but maybe you should do it."

He shook his head. "I'm here to help if you need it, but I think it's only fair that you cast the spell. Rhys told me what's been happening. I'm sorry for being so harsh on you, Rowena."

"I understand," Rowena started, but Genevieve interrupted.

"Can we not right now? I hear something coming."

Decisively, Rowena threw the book into the crater, stood at the edge, and cast the spell. Despite the books they had read on the subject, she wasn't prepared for the sheer force of the heat and she backed away from the hole as a snake appeared from the flames, chasing the book and engulfing its own tail as it swallowed the pages. Rowena couldn't watch long. Professor Finney stood beside her, casting the complicated charm to cease the flames while Genevieve and Rhys threw the piles of earth back on top of the book.

Even from underneath the weight of the earth, Rowena could hear the soul screaming and its agony left her very close to pity before coming to her senses and remembering what it is that had been destroyed. Small licks of flame still came up to the surface of the hole, blazing momentarily like a lighter before flickering out. "We need to stop those," Professor Finney said. "If they're in the air long enough, they'll find the oxygen they need to keep going, and from there it will only grow."

They heaved new dirt on top of the completed mound, each focusing so deeply on keeping the fire contained and helping it to die beneath their feet that they didn't hear Morgana approaching behind them.

"It's gone?" Rhys whispered tentatively, looking over the mound of dirt that still steamed from the heat.

"What's gone?" Morgana answered, her voice close enough to Rowena's neck that she could feel the monster breathing. She kept calm, trying her best to not analyze what it meant that her mother was breathing again, trying not to think of what she might have done to her father.

"The book," Rowena replied confidently. "The book has been destroyed."

A look of triumph overcame her mother's face and when she spoke she was almost laughing. "What did you do? Bury it? Horcruxes are very resilient and I haven't felt it dying yet."

"Fiendfyre," Genevieve replied. "And we heard it die."

"No," Morgana said, but she was whispering almost to herself. "No. This is impossible. They're just kids; they don't know how to do it. It will be okay."

Her whispering was like a madness and Genevieve and Rhys moved closer to Rowena in the middle. The three of them held hands, standing in the gap between Morgana and the place where her soul had once been. Rowena tried to be fearless, tried to stay that way even when Morgana raised a wand - her father's - and the ground beneath them started to shake. She knew what her mother was doing in this earthquake. She wanted to see the book of fairy tales for herself. This didn't worry Rowena. She knew it had been destroyed.

The only issue, then, was whether or not Morgana would try to get through the three of them to get to the book.

Morgana's first verbal spells were to Stun both Rhys and Genevieve before any of them had time to react. Rowena glanced around, but couldn't see Professor Finney anywhere and she was too scared to call out to him. "Join me, Rowena. We can rediscover immortality together, mother and daughter."

"Not if I lived a thousand lifetimes," Rowena said. Morgana's next spell knocked her over, but she remained conscious on the ground, unable to move. Sunrise was coming, adding a reddish tinge to the treetops and the ashes on the ground until they almost seemed to be glowing. In this light with its long shadows, a strange-shaped shadow fell over her body and if she could have moved, she would have smiled.


	14. Revenge

Among the strange-shaped shadows, a human figure moved, and Rowena strained to get her eyes to follow it. Professor Finney surfaced, hidden from Morgana in the dense trees, but his eyes focused on Rowena and he smiled, bringing one finger to his lips to keep her silent, seeming to forget she couldn't move. He non-verbally cast the spell to unbind her, and Rowena sat up, taking in the Forest scene. Rhys and Genevieve still lay unconscious on either side of her; further away, Morgana's guard was down, seemingly satisfied in their incapacitation.

When Professor Finney moved to a better position to revive the others, Morgana turned at the noise and found his shadow. Even in the dim lighting of pre-dawn, Rowena could sense the coldness in her mother's eyes. Rowena tried to warn him, but before she could finish screaming "Professor!", Morgana's wand was raised and the incantation out of her mouth. _"Avada Kedavra."_

His body grew stiff and fell backwards, away from Rhys's body, which still lay unmoving beside Rowena. "No," Rowena whispered, the facts of the moment still sorting themselves out inside of her. It couldn't be; he couldn't be gone. She wanted to give up, then, turn herself in; they shouldn't have called for his help. He had only just believed that what they were facing was real. How come, in the moment he finally accepted the truth, the truth killed him? Rowena had heard somewhere that truth was supposed to set people free.

Without him unbinding her, of course, she likely would have been dead before the red dawn could completely take over the sky. But better her than him; she was still hunted - he was only collateral damage. When the thoughts had gathered inside her head, she stood up, wand at the ready to revive her friends.

"Don't bother, or they will go the way of that stranger," Morgana warned.

"That _stranger_ was the best Professor I ever had. He shouldn't have had to die."

"He shouldn't have been in the way."

"That's no reason to kill someone," Rowena said, standing up the rest of the way, keeping her wand pointed steadily at Morgana. She hardly dared to blink, worried about what her mother might do next.

"That's the only reason to kill someone, really. You have much to learn."

"I have no intention of learning it!"

"That's a shame, Rowena. If you don't choose to join me, I think I shall find you thoroughly _in my way_."

Rowena dared to take two steps closer, her eyes never leaving Morgana's. "And you will leave my friends alone and take me, and only me?"

"As long as they stay out of the way. And as they are unconscious, that seems likely."

"Good. But you had better be telling the truth."

The way her voice switched so automatically between the coldness of icicles and the sweetness of golden syrup was almost more off-putting than the words she spoke. "Rowie, darling! Why wouldn't I be telling the truth?"

"There's about a million reasons I can think of that you wouldn't be telling me the truth. You and Papa lied to me for nearly 17 years! You lied to me, and lied again; then, on the rare chance that you told the truth, you erased it from my memory and hid my past in a cabinet in your bedroom."

Morgana looked at her daughter, her wand going slack in her hand. "You found out about that?"

"I have. I've been inside your mind, and Papa's, and my own. I know what you did to me, _mother._ I don't know very much else, but I know that my childhood is full of secrets kept in flasks. I want the truth. And when I'm done with you," she said, refraining from contemplating whether she would still be alive when it was over, "When I am done, I will go and get my memories back."

"I don't recommend that, Rowie. When I met you a few short weeks ago, you seemed so well-adjusted. In fact, maybe you'd be better off with another memory charm now. _Oblivi-"_

Rowena was prepared for this and shouted "_Protego!" _before Morgana could complete the spell and a shield went up around her. She didn't let it drop, but shouted through it. "You can't take my memories from me anymore! I'm of age and I want to own my past the way I own my present. I've lost any respect I had for you. You never treated me like a daughter; instead, I was someone to toy with, an inconvenience in your plans for immortality. How you could ever think I would join you is beyond me."

She refused to drop her wand, keeping it constantly pointed at her mother's chest, though she couldn't bring herself to do more than protect herself. Morgana, too, was relentless. Although she kept her wand raised, her weapons, for the moment, remained verbal. "You're unhappy with your incomplete memory, then Rowie? Do you wish to know everything? Wishing to know everything is the ultimate act of arrogance. You aren't worthy of knowing everything.

"Perhaps, then, if you cannot content yourself with an incomplete memory, you'd rather it vanished altogether? I can arrange that, you know. The dead have no memories to recall, and soon your entire existence will be forgotten. You aren't worthy of bearing Harry Potter's name."

Morgana pulled her wand back just the tiniest fraction, and every ounce of hatred that had been welling up inside Rowena over the past month fueled her. She shook off her logic, her need to think everything through, and her wand was the faster of the two. Unforgivable words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying.

When the soul piece that lived on in the book died, it screamed. It cried out from its grave and kept trying to live. But the mutilated body Morgana lived in fell backward without a word, eyes still open as she hit the Forest floor. Everything around Rowena was silent and in slow motion, like the thud of her mother's body hitting the ground never happened. She barely registered it as she fell to her knees, the Elder Wand knocked loose from her hand.

Though she knew she could still move, she felt paralyzed, alienated from her own body like her motions weren't her own. It seemed impossible to wrap her mind around what just happened and she kept repeating it inside her head as she knelt, staring at the bare feet of Morgana. They probably grew colder every second as the life finished leaving them. _I killed my mother. I killed my own mother._

The tears she wanted to cry wouldn't come, and though a million excuses and justifications sprung to her mind about why she had done it, none of them took hold of her and she stayed on the ground, almost as if she was waiting for her mother to move.

Morgana's body began to glow red with the coming of dawn and finally Rowena knew she needed to get up. Her mother was going nowhere, and neither was Professor Finney. Her friends still lay unconscious behind her. The only person left to act was herself, and the rising sun reminded her that was time.

She got to her knees, feeling sick to her stomach and weak. It was not easy to become a murderer, even a justified one, and she found herself immediately fighting the temptation to lie down and go to sleep. The danger was gone; all was not well, but there was nothing left to do about it. Rowena knew she didn't have the strength to levitate her friends back to the castle, but she couldn't leave them there, either. Before she had risen to her feet, she gave up and lay down again, wanting to bury herself like the Horcrux was buried.

But a shadow again crossed over her face, nearly silent behind her, and a muzzle nudged her shoulder. _Thestrals._ Still she could see them, and they seemed drawn to her. She couldn't bring back her friends alone, but if she had the Thestrals to help... they gave her the courage she needed to go on.

At a glance, the three bodies that lay behind her looked as though they could be sleeping, but Professor Finney's eyes lay perpetually open, unblinking. She went to his body first and closed his eyelids, trying to persuade her own not to leak. It wasn't working. She picked up the Elder Wand again and pointed it at Rhys. "_Rennervate,"_ she muttered, and watched him blink heavily and yawn.

"Rowena? Is everything okay?"

"No, it isn't."

He stood up, wobbly on his feet, and made his way to her. Pulling her close, he kissed her cheek and stroked her hair. "Is Morgana-" The question went cold on his lips.

"She's dead."

"That's... that's good, isn't it? I mean, she was trying to kill us."

Rowena swallowed, not sure she could manage to tell Rhys what she needed to say. "Finney," she finally whispered. "She killed Finney before I could- I tried everything I-"

He simply stared at her, speechless. It seemed like he was doing everything in his power to avoid looking behind them, where Finney's body lay, but it was nearly morning. They needed to get back to the castle.

"Thestrals are here," Rowena said. "Two of them. I think we should use them to get out of here. I will ride with Genevieve, if you don't mind taking..." She gestured behind him.

"Could you? At least you can see them. I don't think I could watch his body in front of me just... floating. We can wake Genevieve up."

"Okay. _Rennervate_," she said again, and Genevieve woke up. In as many words as she could muster, Rowena explained to her what had happened and told her the plan. Genevieve nodded solemnly and Rowena helped the pair onto the waiting Thestral. She climbed onto her own Thestral and levitated the body next to her, but to see him hovering there, lifeless, was unnerving. She moved him to the body of the Thestral and lay him down in front of her.

The animals seemed to know when they were ready to go and set off, their pace slow, like a funeral march. The sun was rising quickly now, golden in the distance as they left the cover of the trees and began to make their way through the grounds.

The doors to the Entrance Hall opened and closed on the horizon and a figure approached. Rowena was too tired to care who it was, but as they neared she saw the graying hair of their Headmaster. With every step, more of his face was illuminated by the sunrise and came into focus: his fast pace; the concern pressing the wrinkles around his eyes together. The Thestrals slowed instinctively, then stopped about fifteen feet from Headmaster Malfoy.

One by one, they dismounted the animals, Rowena again taking care to levitate the body on its way down, setting it gently on the ground, then turning away the moment her magic was no longer needed. She looked at her Headmaster, but felt the numbness of her expression. Was there any depth to her eyes anymore? She didn't know what to say; it seemed Rhys and Genevieve didn't either.

It was a long, uncomfortable silence before Malfoy said, "Finney sent a Patronus to me. He said you three were in trouble. I came as soon as I could." The tone of apology was unmistakable behind his words.

"I don't think there's anything you could have done," Rowena finally managed to say.

"What happened?"

Rowena swallowed. "He... got in the way."

"Of what? Rowena, what happened? Who attacked you?"

"My mother."

"But I thought-"

"I thought so, too, until recently. But I don't want to talk about it yet. I promise to tell you everything you need to know, but not right now."

"I understand, Ms. Potter, of course. We should get you to the hospital wing. All of you."

The Thestrals disappeared behind her into the Forest, and their retreat reminded her that Morgana's dead body still lay there. She knew the Thestrals' diet. Did Morgana deserve it? Probably. But she loved her papa, and he would probably want to give her mother a proper burial. "Headmaster? Before we leave... my mother's body is in the Forest still. Maybe we should get her before-" She looked over her shoulder to the Thestrals who were trotting back to the Forest.

"Let me get the three of you to the hospital wing first, and take care of-" He swallowed abruptly. "Professor Finney. Then I will see what I can do."

"Thank you."

They began to move as a group, but Rhys stopped and looked back; they had left Professor Finney's body behind. "Can we say goodbye, please? I know it doesn't mean much, now, but Genevieve and I didn't even see him go. I didn't expect- when I went to get him, I never would have thought-"

The Headmaster's interruption came as a relief. "You may go."

The three walked back to the body. Rowena wanted to be sick, seeing his lifeless form so close to the garden he used for teaching. It felt so wrong. She stood between her friends, holding each of their hands, and they knelt down together. There wasn't much to say, really. Not beyond, "Sorry," and "Thank you," and "You'll never know how much you did for us." But they all seemed to need a feeling of closure. Even with it, the overwhelming sense of guilt wouldn't leave Rowena alone.

Although they walked in silence, seeming to find their way to the hospital wing on muscle memory alone, Rowena didn't feel the disapproval that hung in the air of some adult silences. If there was an aura to the heaviness that pressed on them, it was guilt. Rowena guessed they all felt it, to some extent or another. They had all, in their own minds at least, contributed to his death. Each could think of something they could have done to prevent it, and, as far as the air surrounding them could have her guess, none of them thought to blame anyone else.

Genevieve, Rhys, and Rowena waited outside the door of the wing momentarily, while the Headmaster went in alone. He appeared a few minutes later and beckoned them inside. "I've instructed her not to ask any questions. She has a dreamless sleeping draught prepared for all three of you. I imagine it's been awhile since you slept?"

Genevieve nodded and they made their way toward the matron. "You three do look down," she said. "I have just the thing."

One at a time, they took a long drink of the potion; even its taste as it slid down her throat was soothing, like homemade soup or a favorite pie. Though Rowena had wished for pyjamas a moment before, it no longer seemed necessary. The warm covers would do as long as her eyelids would soon be shut. She was asleep within minutes and didn't notice the Headmaster leave the room again, one stray tear wiped from his eye with the back of his hand.

When she woke up again, it was nearly sunset. Genevieve and Rhys appeared to sleep soundly still, and Rowena had no interest in waking them up. She had put them through so much. Even just to get to this point, where they lay beside her in hospital beds, was too much for her to ask. And it wasn't even Rhys's first time here because of her.

For the first time in weeks, she actually wanted to forget everything. It wasn't such a bad idea, perhaps, that her parents took away all the bad things and put them literally out of her mind. She spent a peaceful ten years without them, and wouldn't mind returning. If only she could reach her wand... a simple _Obliviate _would do it, and she could return to the bliss of her old ignorance.

No. As the sleep left her eyes and her brain cleared, she realized exactly what it was she had been thinking. Forgetting it all wouldn't change anything. Her mother would still be dead, which was good; but Finney would still be dead, too, and that was all her fault. They dragged him into it when he tried to warn them it was dangerous. And yet they escaped unscathed and he... he didn't. Not at all.

She would take it all back if she could, go back to the very beginning four weeks ago and just not pursue the subject, but it was too late for that now. As Rhys and Genevieve woke up as well, she refused to look at them, staring instead at the stark white bedside table.

"Rowena, you need to talk to us," Rhys says finally. "You can't stay locked up inside your head forever. You'll go mad."

"Maybe I want to go mad. Maybe I already _am_ mad. Look what I put you through! In hospital again because of me."

"I'm fine, though, Rowena. We were only here to be sure."

"Not last time. Last time they weren't sure either of us would make it. And that was my fault as well."

"You can't keep blaming yourself," Genevieve said. "You had no choice."

Rowena turned around, propping herself up on one elbow and facing her friend. "No, you're right. I didn't have a choice. But Rhys did, and you did, and especially Professor Finney. I could have kept you out of it. I could have kept a secret. Secret keeping seems to run in my blood, after all."

"Rowena Potter, look at me," Rhys scolded. "Look at me right now."

"What?"

"You can't be thinking like this. If you try and go through and find all the causes and effects to see who really started it all, it wasn't you. It was Morgana, and she dragged you into this. You couldn't have stayed away from it all because she wouldn't let you. And I was stuck being involved, too. It was _my_ wand you were searching for, Rowena. And before you were searching for my wand, we were searching for this," he said, pulling the ankh out from beneath his shirt. "If I hadn't lost it, we wouldn't be here. And if I hadn't gotten detention, we wouldn't be here. Do you see what I mean?

"This is no one's fault more than anyone else's. If there's anything to forgive, I forgive you for it. But you have to forgive yourself, too."

"Finney's dead," she said, and it was the first time she acknowledged it aloud. She was surprised at how easy it was to say, as if they were just ordinary words.

Rhys looked like he was about to cry at the blunt way the sentence left her, but he continued. "I know. And there's nothing we can do about it now. Morgana is gone for good. She won't attack you again. Will you please rejoice in that?"

Rowena wished it were that simple.


	15. Reconciliation

Rowena woke up again around twilight to a knock on the door. "Come in," she called weakly. Everyone she truly felt like seeing was already in the room. Although when Aquila appeared in the doorway, she felt a smile creep onto her face that even_ felt_ genuine. "Papa. I've missed you." She said each word carefully, hoping he could gather every nuance of what she meant.

He approached her bedside and sat down, wrapping his arms around her. "I've missed you, too. I've missed _me_. Thank you, Rowena. You did what I wasn't capable of doing."

His words reminded her why she had been so upset, why smiling was so difficult. "How can you thank me for murdering your wife? My own mother? How can you _thank_ me when I can't even _forgive_ me?"

"Ro, she wasn't herself; surely you saw that. She had already chosen to be less than human. You kept her from being any worse."

"I'm a murderer," she said, staring at the blank wall across from her rather than at her father. "Mum said I'm unworthy to share Harry Potter's name, and she's right. But not for the reasons she meant." Without warning, the emotions of the past four weeks welled up, too deep to stay inside of her, and she began to cry.

Aquila's arms grew tighter around her body, one hand tracing circles on her back, and even through her tears, she remembered why she loved her childhood with him so much, in the days before he was possessed. "I killed her first, Rowena. Remember that, okay? I know how you feel."

"No one else died because of you, though. Professor Finney died because of me."

There was a pause, the atmosphere heavy around them. "Do you remember the Frenchman from the memories? Monsieur duPont?"

"Of course."

"He wasn't a stranger. Your mum and I spent some time living in France before we had you, and that man - Jean Ellul - was my best friend. I wasn't supposed to know this, but I believe he was also Morgana's lover."

"It said duPont on the flask, though, not Ellul. It can't be the same man."

"That last name is what the French use to protect someone's identity. The man she murdered to create her Horcrux was the man who helped her pursue the Hallows in the first place. You and I went to France to stay with him... with her. To help them both. And I watched her kill him. I didn't even try to stop her."

"You were protecting me! You couldn't keep both of us safe, and you chose me." Understanding brightened her eyes while she looked at him. "You think I made the right decision, then?"

"Of course I do. I think all three of you - and Professor Finney - made the right decisions. You can't carry the guilt around forever. It will haunt you; the guilt is almost worse than the apparition. Trust me."

"I'll try, Papa. I will. But I can already tell I'm not the same person I used to be."

"Not all change is bad, Ro. Regardless, all change will help you grow. I'm proud of you. Please forgive yourself." He squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead, then left the room.

Professor Finney's funeral was scheduled for two days later. It was held at a small church on the outskirts of Hogsmeade and its attendance was meager. Only half the school came, and a few outsiders who must have been friends or relatives. Rowena found it difficult to think of Finney with a life outside Hogwarts; it reminded her just how much she ruined. She dressed in black and kept her hair down, letting it shield her face from everyone and block any emotion she might give away.

Rhys was beside her, in black as well, and more somber than she'd ever seen him. He held her hand, but it was with a loose grip, a formality. "I've never been to a funeral before," he whispered as he heaved open the great stone doors of the church.

"Neither have I. That I remember, at least," she amended, but her voice didn't break with bitterness. It was a fact; simply a fact. Aquila was waiting for them in the third row, near the outside. Light shone through a stained glass window, turning the wooden pew a strange mix of gold and red. The colors patterned his face, but he didn't seem to notice.

Headmaster Malfoy presided over the service. Rowena didn't have any strength left to be surprised. She let the words of her professor's life wash over her like some kind of melody. His first name was Lucas; how did she not know this after six years?

Malfoy said Finney died a noble death, protecting the school from an evil unlike any it had seen in at least a hundred years. He made it sound so much more glamorous than it actually was, panicking in the Forest. An unnecessary death. Malfoy left that part out. Rowena had told him, when he came to ask the details the day before, that Morgana claimed he had been in the way and that was reason enough for his life to end.

He must have disagreed. His omission felt like so much more than an attempt to keep his life full of meaning. In leaving it out, in telling the story differently, he gave Finney's meaningless death a purpose. In that purpose, he had dignity. And in his dignity, Rowena began to find herself able to forgive.

When the service ended, Rowena and Rhys left holding hands, heads down and silent, still paying their respects to the dead. Behind them, however, Rowena heard a "Psst!" She stopped walking and turned around to where Serah Macmillan stood.

"I heard that it's your fault," she whispered. "I heard he died trying to save you two from your own stupidity."

"Shut up, Serah," Rhys said, and tried to pull Rowena along with him.

She didn't budge. "Malfoy told you what happened, and he told you the truth. Don't believe every rumor you hear. He did die trying to save me. The thing is, he succeeded. His death gave me the strength I needed to kill Morgana. I will always regret his death. Always. And I'll probably always feel guilty about it. But I know that even if he knew what was going to happen, he still would have walked into the Forest with us." Rowena turned away from Serah, who stared at her, open-mouthed, and walked with Rhys and Genevieve back toward the castle.

"Oh, no!"

"What's wrong, Rhys?"

He bit his lip. "I, er, my ankh fell off back at the church. I should probably go back for it."

Rowena grinned. "I should come with you, and make sure you don't pick up any other interesting-looking stones."

"We both know it's you we have to worry about, in that respect."

"Um, I'll just meet you back at the castle," Genevieve said, and Rowena blushed. She'd forgotten there was anyone else around.

"Okay," Rowena said, and took Rhys's hand in her own. It felt right, having his hand in hers while they walked back. It was like their first trip to the Forest, but they were held close not by the Invisibility Cloak, but by their own hands. The first time they went to look for the ankh, she was nervous and frightened and breaking school rules. Now they didn't need the Cloak to hide them or to mask their feelings.

By the time they reached it, the church was already empty. They walked down the center aisle together, slowly, Rowena's head turned left and Rhys's head turned right, looking down the rows of pews as they passed them. Rhys finally stopped in the third row, where they had been sitting. "It's here, Ro," he said, letting go of her hand. He picked it up and strung it back around his neck. While she waited, she moved forward, to the altar at the front of the church.

He joined her there, looking intently across at her. Neither said anything for a few long minutes. "So..." Rhys said.

"So," Rowena repeated.

"It's finally over. We're safe."

"We are."

"I don't think you can have any more-"

"I guess I'm all out of-" They spoke over each other, then realized what they were saying and both stopped abruptly. "Excuses," they finally said at the same time.

"So you'll consider..."

"Rhys. It's not even a choice. Especially after everything we've been through. I... I love you, Rhys."

"I love you, too." He leaned up and kissed her, one hand drawing her close. It wasn't the right kind of passionate, not quite the dramatic kiss she expected to happen at the end of the ordeal. There wasn't enough happy in it, or enough _finally_. Or maybe there was enough of both, but far too much grief. But even though it was, in some ways, imperfect, it felt right.

"Should we go back, then?" Rhys asked, when they pulled away from a series of kisses that made Rowena feel safe.

"Yes, I guess we should." She smiled and took his hand, and together they made their way back up the aisle and out of the church.

Headmaster Malfoy was present at dinner that evening. "I'm sure by now you all know what happened, so I will keep this brief. Due to the unexpected death of Professor Finney, classes will be on holiday for one week. Students who wish to may spend this time with their families. Students who wish to stay are welcome, but we request that the somber nature of this event is honored by anyone who remains."

"What are you going to do?" Rhys asked her in the chaos of murmurs that rose after the Headmaster sat down.

"I think I want to go back to Godric's Hollow with Papa."

He smiled. "I had a feeling you might. Do you mind if I join you?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way. Except..."

"What?"

"I think we should invite Genevieve, too. It only makes sense, after everything she's done for us."

Rhys's face fell, almost imperceptibly, but it perked up again within moments. "You're right. We should."

When they finished eating, they found her at the Ravenclaw table, eating by herself, but seeming content about it. Rowena sat down unceremoniously. "Hey, Gen."

Her face lit up at the sight of her. "Hi, Rowena! I didn't think... I mean, now that everything's over..."

"There are some things you can't go through without becoming friends," Rowena said, smiling. "We're going to go to Godric's Hollow for the break from school. Do you want to come with us?"

"I think I'll stay here. Thanks, though, Rowena."

"Anytime, Genevieve." She turned and walked away, but only made it a few steps before abruptly turning back. "And Gen?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think I've ever properly thanked you. So... thank you. For everything."

She smiled. "Of course. It was my pleasure."

They decided to Apparate to Godric's Hollow. The Hogsmeade train station held too many memories of Professor Finney and the ride back to town with a possessed Aquila. He had Disapparated for home right after the funeral, finally seeming like himself again.

Rowena blinked a few times, her hands on her knees, as she recovered from Apparation. Then she stood up, found Rhys's hand beside her, and entered her childhood home without knocking. "Papa? Are you around?"

"Rowena! Rhys! I didn't expect you so soon."

She shrugged. "Headmaster Malfoy is giving the school a week off while they search for a professor for Care of Magical Creatures. We wanted to come here, see how you were doing." Boxes were piled around the kitchen, and Rowena had to weave her way to find her father. "What exactly _are_ you doing?"

"I can't stay here, Rowena. Surely you understand. I need to move away from Godric's Hollow. There are just too many memories here."

"Not for me, there aren't," Rowena said. "There aren't nearly enough."

"Oh, sweetheart." Aquila looked up from his packing and turned not to Rowena, but to Rhys. "Do you mind waiting here for a minute?"

"Not at all."

Rowena followed her father back toward his bedroom, where the cabinet with the Pensieve was open. A pile of empty flasks lay on the floor haphazardly, but Rowena noticed the shelves of her own memories were intact. "These weren't mine to get rid of," he said. "It's up to you what you want to do with them. The Pensieve is ready."

There were rows upon rows of memories: at least a hundred. They were meticulously labeled with the date and time of extraction, but didn't have any clue as to the subject matter of each. It would take hours - days - to sort through them all. "Are they all missing memories of Mum?"

Aquila nodded sadly beside her.

"How many of them are happy memories? Ones I would want to have?"

He looked through them, their dates, their contents, but she didn't think he was trying to remember what happened on each day. His expression was more unfocused than that, like he was somehow letting all the memories soak in at once. These memories weren't lost to _him_, she realized, as she noticed his eyes glazing over. If she wanted them, all she had to do was ask, and he could tell her stories - true ones - about her childhood. "One. Maybe two," he finally said.

"Let's destroy them all."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely," she said, and grabbed a flask to prove her point.

Rhys and Rowena spent the remainder of the evening helping her father pack. Rowena was surprised, with how much of her childhood was stolen, how many memories the house still held for her. It was bittersweet, the packing up, but it felt necessary and almost therapeutic. Starting over again would be good for her father. No, she corrected, it would be good for them both. She stole a glance at Rhys and smiled.

"I think that's enough for tonight," Aquila said, and they gathered in the living room. "I have something for you. Come here?"

Rowena approached and sat down on the arm of the chair while he rummaged through a bag at his feet. He sat up again and handed over the Invisibility Cloak. "Where did you find that?"

"Headmaster Malfoy had it. He gave it to me when I returned home, said I could do with it what I saw fit. And I think you are a much more responsible owner of it than I am."

She ran it through her fingers, letting the soft fabric soothe her. Two of the three Hallows were in her hands, although they could never again be united. "Papa?"

"Yeah?"

"What _do_ you know about our family history?"

Her father got up from his armchair and crossed the room, picking up an old album that hadn't yet been packed away. The pages were almost brown with age, but the title on the cover shone clearly. _The Genealogy of Harry James Potter_.

"So... it's true?" she asked, flipping through the pages. Their history was surprisingly well-documented.

"That Harry Potter is our ancestor? Yes."

"Well, more that Harry Potter really _lived_. It's hard to wrap my mind around. He's a fairy tale character. I can't picture him alive any more than I can picture _Merlin_ alive."

"Almost all legends have their basis in fact, Rowena. Even the cult of Harry Potter probably gets some things about him right sometimes. But I don't care what it is you believe about Harry Potter or who you're related to some thirty generations ago."

"You don't?"

"Of course not, sweetheart. You could worship him in the cult or be one of those who insist he never existed, and it wouldn't bother me. I know he really existed. I have the proof here. And I have stories my ancestors told me about stories their ancestors told them, back and back. He lived to see his great-great-grandchildren born, and they went on to see their great-great-grandchildren born, and suddenly he's not so far away anymore. So I know he was human. And I like to think that he was truly a hero.

"But more important to me than any of that is how you live today, Rowena. What you choose to do with _your_ life. What you believe about yourself." He pulled her close for a hug, and although Rowena felt awkward to hug her father in front of Rhys, she let him. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she felt four again. "So far, you've proven to be every bit as much of a hero as Harry Potter. To me, that's far more important than who you share a last name with."

"Thanks, Papa."

Rowena and Rhys decided to leave in the morning. She was glad to see her father, but having thrown out the memories brought her peace like nothing else had. She was ready to return to Hogwarts and remember what it was like to be a normal student again, with revision and disorganized piles of notes to sort through. A week without classes was probably exactly what she needed to catch up, after all.

"Goodbye, Papa," she said at the door, and kissed his cheek. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, too, Ro. Don't forget to write!"

"I won't."

"Rhys?" she asked as they walked down the pathway together. "Do you mind if we take the train back to Hogwarts?"

"Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"I'm sure." A day-long journey through the countryside would keep them occupied, after all. It felt like easing her way back into normality, like the way the scenery changed so seamlessly from English countryside to Scottish highlands.

Rowena saw Godric's Hollow through different eyes as she walked; she saw it through the eyes of someone leaving for good. Through the eyes of someone who truly believed Harry Potter once lived here. She paused at the graveyard at the outskirts of town. "Do you mind if we go in?"

"Feel free," Rhys responded, and opened the kissing gate.

Row upon row revealed itself, older than Rowena had ever imagined. "Wow."

"Have you never been in here before?"

"I thought it was a load of codswallop; I never gave it a chance." They kept moving, but near the middle, she slowed and finally stopped.

She expected the gravestone to be larger.

Maybe it was a fake, after all. But Rowena no longer believed so.

_Here lies Harry James Potter, who died an old man.  
__But he will always be the Boy Who Lived.  
__31 July 1981 - 1 August 2100_

When she stood up again, the plain-looking black obelisk behind the gravestone changed into a beautiful golden statue of a man, woman, and child. And on the child's forehead was a scar. "Harry Potter really lived here," she said, finally.

"Yes, and you are living here right now." Rhys leaned over and kissed her as they stood beneath the statue of Harry Potter. She may have been standing in the shadow of her past, but she was kissing a man who would help her bring about her future. As his lips grew more insistent against hers, and he pulled her even closer, Rowena Potter sighed.

_The end._

* * *

**Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me. I would love it if you could leave me a review now that it is over. Please let me know what you thought. Writing this has been a fantastic journey and I feel like I've learned a lot. Thank you; every reader I have had has made this story even more worth it as I write.**

_Mischief Managed._


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